u,;i>.ilMAi^  iti.>iiiji.0IJ5  Lll 


'^^IAjL 


A.  JL  r  .K  A — /  i-. 


EY  BrrTINGER 


FROM   THE   LIBRARY  OF 
REV.   LOUIS    FITZGERALD    BENSON.   D.  D. 

BEQUEATHED   BY   HIM   TO 

THE   LIBRARY  OF 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


jDiTlslon      S<^^CZ 
Section      /OOl    J 


/-Mi. 


\ 


GERMAN  RELIGIOUS  LIFE 

IN 

COLONIAL  TIMES 


GERMAN 
RELIGIOUS  LIFE 

IN 

COLONIAL    TIMES 


BY     LUCY     FORNEY     BITTINGER 

AUTHOR  OF  "the    GERMANS  IN  COLONIAL    TIMES" 


i^,, 


PHILADELPHIA  AND   LONDON 

7.  B.  LIPPINCOTT    CO  MP  A  NT 

I  g  o  6 


Copyright,  1906 
By  J.  B.  LippiNCOTT  Company 


Published,  January,  JQ07 


TO 

A.  M.  F. 


FOREWORD. 


It  is  hoped  that  this  caption,  derived  from  the  Ger- 
man Vorwort,  instead  of  the  more  usual  ''Preface," 
may  not  seem  affected  in  a  book  treating  of  matters 
Germanic. 

The  work  deals  with  much  the  same  subject  as  that 
of  my  earlier  book,  "The  Germans  in  Colonial  Times." 
But  it  is  specifically  confined  to  an  account  of  the  reli- 
gious life  of  the  same  period  and  people.  A  better  title 
would  have  been  "Church  Life,"  were  it  not  that  the 
restriction  of  the  term  "church"  to  the  three  tolerated 
confessions — Lutheran,  Reformed,  and  Catholic — 
makes  this  title  seem  to  confine  the  subject  of  the 
work  to  them,  whereas  the  story  of  the  sects  forms  a 
large  part  of  it,  as  well  in  importance  as  in  bulk. 

It  has  been  my  aim  to  make  the  history  a  con- 
nected story,  not  following  the  thread  of  each  separate 
denomination's  annals,  but  rather  trying  to  look  over 
the  whole  field  and  narrate  the  general  course  of  eccle- 
siastical life  among  the  Germans  in  America  during  the 
Colonial  era. 

LUCY  FORNEY  BITTINGER. 

Sewickley,   Pennsylvania. 
July  9,    1906. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  p^^^ 

I    Religious  conditions  in  Germany u 

II    The  separatists 24 

III  The  church  people „ 

IV  The   MORAVIANS       yo 

V     The  METHODISTS 04 

VI      The   GERMAN   CHURCHES   DURING  THE   REVOLUTION     ....  107 

Conclusion j^. 


GERMAN  RELIGIOUS  LIFE 
IN  COLONIAL  TIMES 

¥¥ 

CHAPTER  I 

RELIGIOUS  CONDITIONS  IN  GERMANY 

The  history  of  religious  life  in  this  country,  as  it  has 
manifested  itself  among  the  English-speaking  portion  of 
our  people,  has  been  abundantly  studied.  In  particular, 
of  making  various  books  about  the  Puritans  of  New  Eng- 
land and  their  spiritual  descendants,  there  is  no  end.  But 
the  same  life  as  it  has  manifested  itself  among  the  Ger- 
man Americans  has  been  much  nedected,  save  on  the 
part  of  denominational  annalists  who  have  often  shed 
more  heat  than  light  upon  history.  Some  account  of 
German  religious  life,  especially  in  the  Colonial  period 
of  our  history,  would  seem  to  be  worth  attempting. 

In  order  to  understand  German  religious  life  we 
must  understand  the  Germany  from  which  it  took  its 
rise  ;  not  the  heroic  Germany  of  the  Reformation  era, 
not  the  powerful  Empire  of  our  own  time,  but  the  very 
different  land  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Between  that 
Germany  and  the  other  two  lies  the  abyss  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War,  and  it  was  out  of  this  pit  of  abasement  and 
suffering  that  the  first  German  emigrants  came  to  this 
country. 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

When  we,  at  the  present  day,  speak  of  Germany  and 
the  Germans,  we  unconsciously  think  of  the  great  world 
power  which  now  bears  that  name,  the  land  of  Goethe 
and  Schiller,  of  Beethoven  and  Wagner,  of  Bismarck 
and  Moltke.  But  the  Germany  from  which  the  Col- 
onial Germans  emigrated  was  one  in  which  misgovern- 
ment  and  a  shameful  yet  shameless  subserviency  to 
French  influence  were  the  chief  characteristics  of  its 
rulers.  Its  literary  Hght  was  the  feeble  glimmer  of  Klop- 
stock  and  Herder  and  Gellert,  with  Leibnitz  and  Les- 
sing  as  the  only  great  names.  Music, — devoted  largely 
to  sacred  themes,  under  **  the  two  glorious  Saxons,"  Bach 
and  Handel — was  the  highest  exemplification  of  art. 
Painting  in  the  land  of  Diirer  was  then  represented  by 
Raphael  Mengs,  while  architecture  lingered  among  the 
relics  of  Gothic  grandeur  which  had  chanced  to  escape 
the  destruction  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  manifesting 
itself  only  in  the  tasteless  exuberance  of  the  Rococo 
style,  imitated  from  France.  The  magnificent  courage 
and  freedom  of  the  Reformers,  those  contemporaries  of 
Huss  and  Luther  and  Zwingli,  had  paled  and  fallen  into 
a  dry  scholasticism  against  which  mysticism  and,  later, 
Pietism,  were  effectual  though  sometimes  extravagant 
protests. 

Yet  it  was  in  the  religious  field  that  the  best  and  deep- 
est German  thinking  was  going  on,  an  illustration  of 
which  is  the  fact  that  of  all  the  literary  productions  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  the  best  are  the  hymns.  Gel- 
lert, dull  and  full  of  mannerisms  in  his  fables,  becomes 
inspired  to  the  best  strains  of  which  he  is  capable  in  his 

12 


Religious  Conditions  in  Germany 

religious  poetry  ;  while  Gerhardt,  who  wrote  nothing  but 
religious  poetry  and  that  ** under  circumstances  when 
most  men  would  weep  rather  than  sing,"  ^  produced 
a  great  body  of  deep  and  exquisite  verse.  Profes- 
sional theologians,  such  as  Arnold,  Thomasius  and 
Bengel,  were  men  of  deep  erudition,  though  they  cer- 
tainly did  not  wear  their  learning  lightly  and  imparted 
it  in  the  terrible  diction  of  their  time — dialectic  German 
interlarded  with  Latin  or  French  words,  constructed  as 
only  a  German  Gelehrter  can  construct  and  as  only  his 
countrymen  can  read. 

A  powerful  influence  to  keep  aHve  the  flame  of  piety 
in  those  degenerate  times  was  the  work  of  that  orthodox 
mystic  Johann  Arndt,  author  of  the  famous  book  ''von 
Wahren  Christenthum"  which  was  for  a  century  and  a 
half  the  favorite  reading  of  pious  people  all  over  Ger- 
many. Born  a  generation  after  the  Reformation  took 
its  rise,  dying  in  the  early  years  of  the  Thirty  Years' 
War,  his  book  strengthened  and  edified  the  people 
through  the  period  we  treat  of  and  in  large  degree 
formed  the  type  of  religious  character  in  that  period 
before  Pietism  took  up  the  work.  His  chief  thesis  is 
that  a  man's  life  is  the  main  part  of  his  creed.  Repent- 
ance means  a  change  of  heart  and  must  show  itself  in 
love  to  God  and  one's  neighbor.  Theological  orthodoxy 
is  very  well,  but  he  taught — and  was  bitterly  persecuted 
and  vilified  for  teaching  it — the  important  thing  is  to 
evidence  faith  by  works.  This  is  good  Lutheran  doc- 
trine,— that  of  the  Augsburg  Confession,  as  he  himself 

1  Winkworth's  "  Christian  Singers  of  Germany." 

13 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

proved  and  reiterated, — but  doctrine  which  many  the- 
ologians of  his  day  treated  as  though  it  were  the  sum  of 
all  iniquity.  Nevertheless  the  common  people  heard 
him  gladly  ;  his  book,  arranged  for  reading  through  the 
church  year  and  for  catechetical  instruction,  was  re- 
garded as  almost  inspired,  and  modern  editions  still  con- 
tain the  account  of  its  **  Fourteen  Miraculous  Preserva- 
tions "  during  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  Bound  with  a 
beautiful  collection  of  prayers,  or  rather  devout  medita- 
tions, called  by  the  quaint  title  "  Paradise  Garden  of  the 
Christian  Soul"  and  illustrated  with  innumerable  rehg- 
ious  ''emblems"  of  every  conceivable  kind,  it  is  still 
popular  and  beloved  among  pious  Germans,  especially 
the  Lutherans. 

Jakob  Boehme,  the  mystical  shoemaker  of  Gorlitz,  had 
somewhat  of  the  same  influence  upon  Separatists  which 
Arndt  had  upon  the  orthodox  church  people.  His  the- 
osophy  was  a  strange  mixture  of  alchemy  and  the  doc- 
trine of  signatures,  with  a  certain  anticipation  of  the 
Swedenborgian  doctrine  of  "correspondence;"  but  he 
wrote  even  after  his  miraculous  "illuminations,"  in  the 
crabbed  and  obscure  style  of  an  uneducated  man  and  his 
"  Aurora"  never  had  the  popularity,  as  it  had  also  not  a 
tithe  of  the  power,  of  Arndt's  simple,  beautiful,  practical 
book. 

Another  influence,  though  somewhat  more  limited 
than  either  Arndt's  or  Boehme's,  was  the  imaginative 
production  of  Pastor  Andrea,  a  Lutheran  clergyman  of 
Wiirtemberg,  a  contemporary  of  Arndt.  Andrea  wrote 
the  account  of  a  crusader,  Christian  Rosencrantz,  who 

14 


Religious  Conditions  in  Germany 

was  supposed  to  have  been  initiated  into  the  rehgious 
order  of  the  Rosicrucians.  His  followers,  afterhaving 
existed  for  centuries  in  secret,  now  desired  the  world  to 
profit  by  their  occult  powers  and  would  be  glad  to 
communicate  with  like-minded  people.  It  was,  in  fact,  a 
pious  mystification  designed  to  ridicule  astrology  and  al- 
chemy and  call  attention  to  various  things  which  Andrea 
thought  might  be  amended  or  undertaken  by  such  a  soci- 
ety as  his  fancied  Rosicrucians  ;  but  the  public  was 
attracted  by  the  magic  and  mystery,  and  not  at  all  by 
the  reformatory  schemes ;  so  the  author  never  lifted  the 
veil  from  his  society  which  had  grown,  like  Frankenstein's 
monster,  too  powerful  for  its  creator.  To  Arndt,  whose 
attention  was  attracted  by  the  account  of  the  society, 
and  who  wrote  for  further  information,  Andrea  acknowl- 
edged the  imaginary  nature  of  the  Rosicrucian  Brother- 
hood. 

Separatism  in  all  of  its  many  forms  was  especially  rife 
in  the  Rhine  Country,  from  which  most  of  our  early 
German  emigration  came.  It  varied  all  the  way  from 
the  pious  opinions  held  or  taught  by  some  pastor  or 
writer,  and  perhaps  his  little  circle  of  followers  or 
readers,  to  societies  approaching  monasticism  in  their 
constitution,  or  the  larger  and  more  formally  organized 
movement,  which  was  called  by  its  enemies  Anabaptist ; 
this  had,  apparently,  no  connection  with  the  socialistic 
and  secular  one  known  as  the  Peasants'  War,  but  took  its 
rise  during  Zwingli's  lifetime  in  Switzerland,  and  at  first 
placed  litde  stress  on  the  time  or  mode  of  baptism. 
Persecution  scattered  it  far  and  wide  ;  the  disorder  of 

15 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

Munster,  although  the  only  instance  of  fanaticism  among 
the  German  Anabaptists,  gave  it  a  bad  repute.  It  was 
afterwards  reformed  by  Simon  Menno,  and  from  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  centuiy  his  followers  were  called 
Mennonites,  which  designation  supplanted  the  older 
one  of  Anabaptists. 

The  most  important  factor  in  the  religious  life  of  Ger- 
many, however,  was  the  movement  called  Pietism  ;  this 
grew  to  be  powerful  over  the  whole  nation,  in  all  rLnks, 
among  Catholics  and  Protestants.    It  took  its  name  from 
the  treatise  of  -  Pia  Desideria,"  published  in    1675   by 
Spener,  who  is  often  called   its   founder.     But   Pietism 
was  too  large  a  thing  to  be  founded  by  any  one  man  or 
one  book,  and  must  have  been  existent  long  before  it 
thus    became    crystalhzed    by    Spener's    impulse.      The 
mysticism  of  Boehme,  Andrea  and  scores  of  others  ;  the 
practical  piety  taught  in  Arndt's  -True  Christianity;" 
the  insistence  of  the  Anabaptists   upon    purity  in  life; 
the  severe  puritanic  discipline  in  the  Reformed  church  of 
Zwingli— ah  these  were  caught  up  into  one  great  whole, 
to  color  religious  and  secular  life  in  Germany  through 
more  than  a  century  following  the  publication  of   the 
"Pia  Desideria." 

Philip  Jacob  Spener  was  an  Alsatian— as  he  himself 
always  proudly  insisted,  -a  Strasburger."  The  fact  that 
he  was  connected  by  birth  and  education  with  the  Luth- 
eran Church  of  this  land,  so  far  from  the  original  seat  of 
the  Saxon  Reformation,  so  near  Calvinistic  Switzer- 
land, proved  a  powerful  influence  in  his  religious  devel- 
opment.      Studying   in    many    universities,    learned    in 


Religious  Conditions  in  Germany 

many  subjects  and  with  considerable  experience  of  the 
world,    he    ever    remained    the   typical,    shy,    awkward 
scholar.      His  meeting  with   Labadie  while  studying  in 
Geneva  was  probably  the  most  important  of  all  outward 
influences   upon  his   future  beliefs  and  practices.     Jean 
de  Labadie  was  a  Frenchman  of  noble   family,  first  a 
Jesuit,    then    a   Jansenist;    so  popular   that    crowds   of 
adherents  followed  him  from  one  end  of  France  to  the 
other.     Not  desiring  to  break  with  Catholicism,  many  of 
whose  characteristics  he  loved  to  the  end  of  his  life,  he 
entered,    or  was  thrust  by  Roman  persecution,  in    his 
fortieth  year,  into  the  Reformed  Church.      On  his  way 
from  the  Principality  of  Orange,  now  besieged  by  Louis 
XIV,  to  take   refuge  in   London,  he  was  called  by  the 
authorities  of  Geneva  to  be  their  pastor.      ^'Thus  was 
Labadie,  the  second  Reformer  of  the  French  Reformed 
Church  after  Calvin,   involuntarily   transplanted   to   the 
city  of  Calvin,  this  most  favored  centre  of  influence  for 
the  Christian  life  in   France,  Italy,  Germany  and  Eng- 
land." ^     Here    Spener    first    met    him,  frequented  his 
preaching  and  learned  in  particular  two   things  which 
Labadie    had    introduced  from    the   Jansenists   of  Port 
Royal  into  the  Protestant  church — the  value  of  meetings 
for    Bible  study  and  the  formation  of  Httle   circles   of 
especially  enlightened  or  pious  people  which  should  be 
a  centre  of  light  to  others  on  a  lower  plane  of  Christian 
life.     These  became  the  cardinal  principles  of  Spener's 
Pietism.      These  he   subsequently   introduced   into   his 
church  in  Frankfort  and  these  he  advised  in  his  famous 

iGoebel,  Vol.  II,  p.  199. 

2  17 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

book   "  Pia  Desideria,"  in  the  preparation  of  which  he 
made  free  use  of  the  writings  of  Labadie. 

Frankfort  might  be  called  the  metropolis  of  the  Ger- 
man Rhineland, — *'  The  old  Imperial  city,  the  centre  of 
the  German  Empire,  important  for  its  commerce,  the 
seat  of  the  book  trade  and  of  intellectual  intercourse."  ^ 
It  was  also  a  metropolis  for  the  district  of  the  Wetterau, 
afterwards  so  famous  for  its  separatism.  Here  Spener 
"became  the  centre  of  Christian  life  in  the  Protestant 
church  of  Western  Germany."  He  founded  many  little 
circles  for  the  study  of  Scripture  ;  he  introduced  catechi- 
zation  for  the  instruction  of  young  people  in  Christian 
truth  preparatory  to  their  confirmation  and — most 
offensive  of  all — beHeved  that  in  all  churches,  even  the 
Reformed,  there  might  be  found  truth  and  wise  exam- 
ples of  Christian  living.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to 
desire  a  union  between  the  warring  Lutheran  and  Re- 
formed churches.  Hatred,  vilification,  persecution, 
never  destroyed  in  him  the  spirit  of  faith,  love  and  work; 
and  Pietism  became  the  saving  salt,  first  of  the  Luther- 
ans and  afterwards  to  a  large  extent  of  all  the  German 
churches  and  sects.  After  twenty  years  of  grandly  suc- 
cessful religious  work  in  Frankfort,  Spener  was  called 
to  Dresden  to  be  the  spiritual  father  of  the  Elector 
there  ;  but  he  found  his  position  at  the  Saxon  court  so 
uncomfortable  and  the  Elector  so  indignant  at  his 
courageous  reproofs,  that  he  was  glad  to  accept  a  call 
to  Berlin,  where,  after  another  period  of  twenty  years  as 
laborious  and  fruitful  as  his  Frankfort  pastorate,  he  died. 

iGoebel,  Vol.  II  p.  557. 

iS 


Religious  Conditions  in  Germany 

The    attempt    to    found   collegia  pietatis  in   Leipzig 
under   the   leadership  of  Francke   and  others   brought 
on   persecution,    insomuch   that   the   brilliant    professor 
Thomasius,    who     had     defended     these    leaders,     was 
obliged  to  seek  safety  from  a  heresy  trial  in  flight.      A 
consequence    of  this    flight    was    the    founding   of  the 
University  of  Halle,  which  became  the  headquarters  of 
Pietists  and   Pietism.      Spener  had  great  influence  here, 
though  he  was  far  from  approving  of  all  that  was  done 
and  warned  the  heads  of  the  University  against  certain 
extravagances.      But  it  was  immensely  popular  from  the 
first,  the  concourse  of  students   being  second  only  to 
that  resulting  from  Luther's  teaching  at  Wittenberg  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before.      From    Halle   Pietism 
spread  to  other  universities  and  to  the  little  courts.      By 
the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  preached 
from  village  pulpits,  the  very  strongholds  of  conserva- 
tism.    Francke,  Spener's  son-in-law,  became  in  a  manner 
his  successor  in  the  leadership  of  the  movement  and  it 
was  here   at   Halle,    too,    that  Francke  gave  it  its   new 
direction   in  the  way  of  merciful   works.     The  famous 
Halle  Orphanage  and  the  Bible  Listitute,   founded   in 
fulfilment  of  a  vow  by  Baron  von  Canstein,  were  located 
in  the  Saxon  city.      Canstein's  name  illustrates  the  fact 
that  Pietism  found  many  of  its  adherents  among  the  so- 
called     upper     classes— nobles,     university     graduates, 
clergymen    and  writers.      Separatism    and    particularly 
the    sects,    on    the     contrary,    found     their     adherents 
among  artisans,    weavers    (who   had    been  heretics  by 
trade     from    pre-reformation    times),    shoemakers    like 

19 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

Jakob    Boehme,     bakers    like    Beissel,    saddlers     like 
Rock. 

Many  of  the  small  principalities  which  were  so  abun- 
dant in  the  Rhineland  exercised  the  right  which,  under 
the  loosely  constituted  Empire,  some  of  the  smallest 
jurisdictions  possessed,  of  protecting  sects  which  were 
not  tolerated  elsewhere.  Eminent  among  these  pietistic 
courts  were  those  of  Isenburg-Budingen  and  Wittgen- 
stein. Sometimes  the  rulers  made  a  sort  of  religious  pet 
of  some  conspicuously  **  pious  "  person  ; — for  example  a 
certain  duke  was  wont  to  act  as  coachman,  driving 
pietistic  artisans'  wives  in  his  ducal  carriage.  But  such 
incidents  were  mostly  later  excrescences  of  the  cult. 

In  time  Pietism  grew  narrower  and  sometimes  de- 
veloped an  intolerance  of  its  own.  Its  separatistic  ten- 
dency cannot  be  denied,  although  Spener  was  able  per- 
sonally to  bring  back  to  his  Frankfort  church  nearly  all 
of  those  who  in  the  excess  of  their  early  zeal  felt  the 
*'  great  church  "  too  coldly  formal  for  them.  But  not  all 
of  Spener's  followers  had  the  broad-mindedness,  the 
learning  and  the  charity  which  distinguished  their  great 
leader,  and  their  frequent  schisms  can  neither  be  denied 
nor  excused.  The  narrowness  of  Pietism,  its  sublime 
selfishness  of  interest  in  personal  salvation  only,  its  self- 
righteousness  even  in  the  midst  of  professions  of  ex- 
travagant humility,  its  objections  to  innocent  customs 
and  amusements,  its  liability  to  give  rise  to  cant  and 
hypocrisy — all  these  faults  may  be  admitted  without 
detracting  from  the  great  and  real  service  which  it  did, 
not  only  to  the  Lutheran  but  to  the  whole  Protestant 


Religious  Conditions  in  Germany 

church  ; — not  only  to  the  religious  but  to  the  national 
life.     The  Pietists  were  the  first  to  make  Christian  love 
and  pity  for  all   men  important,  or  sympathy  with  the 
poor  fashionable.     They  introduced  schools  and  orphan- 
ages   and    the   care    of  the  poor.     Afterwards    leading 
philosophers  like  Leibnitz  tried  to  improve  the  wordly 
condition  of  the  masses.      Goethe  in  his  ''  Hermann  and 
Dorothea,"  first  proved  to  the  Germans  that  the  life  of 
the  common  people  is  fit  material  for  poetry.     The  close 
of  the  Thirty  Years'   War  had,   by  a  natural  reaction, 
produced  a  class  of  rude  vicious  roisterers  among  the 
upper  classes  such  as  disgraced  the  English    Restora- 
tion;— men  who  cared  neither  for  God  nor  man,  least  of 
all  for  their  poor  subjects  or  dependents.      Pietism  stood 
for  the  rights  of  all  as  children  of  a  common  Father. 
Woman,   too  often  regarded  as  a    toy  or  drudge,   was 
honored    among  the  Pietists  as  were   the  prophetesses 
whom  Tacitus  described  among  the  Germans  of  his  day. 
The    earliest  truly  national    movements    in    which    the 
people  without  the  initiative  of  princes  took  part,  were 
the  benevolences  of  Halle;   the  orphan  houses  there  were 
the  first  objects  for  which  a  public  subscription  was  taken 
in  Germany.     All  this  tenderness  of  heart  could  easily 
turn  into  the  gushing  sentimentality  to  which  the  Teu- 
tonic soul  is   naturally  prone.      It  inculcated   a  subser- 
viency toward  ''  all  in  authority"  which  was  not    needed 
in  an  already  servile  people  ;  it  produced  a  peculiar  dia- 
lect that  hardened  into  cant  when  religious  matters  were 
mentioned    and    it   fostered    a  tone    of    sentimentality 
in  secular  things   as  well.      Probably  Freytag   is    right 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

when  he  says  that  '*  VVerther  is  a  descendant  of 
Pietism." 

In  purely  literary  matters  this  form  of  practical  religion 
made  for  a  purer  German  style  with  less  parade  of 
erudition  in  classical  quotation.  Thomasius  is  perhaps 
the  best  type  of  the  literary  man  produced  by  this  way 
of  thinking.  ''  Talented,  easily  moved,  fond  of  a  fight, 
of  applause  ;  exciting  everyone  by  his  restless  activity  ; 
for  Pietists  against  persecuting  orthodoxy  and  equally 
against  fanatical  superstition  ;  he  fought  for  toleration 
and  morality  against  every  sort  of  superstition  or  fanat- 
icism." The  influence  of  Spener's  later  reformation 
upon  the  hymnology  of  the  period  was  not  particularly 
marked  or  distinguished  ;  some  good  writers  of  hymns 
and  devotional  works, — Rodigast,  Laurenti,  and  Bo- 
gatzky,  the  author  of  the  *' Golden  Treasury," — made 
up  the  sum  of  their  success  in  this  line  of  work. 

That  Pietism  prepared  the  way  for  Rationalism  is  a 
favorite  reproach  of  orthodox  writers,  and  probably  it  is 
true  to  the  extent  that  the  study  of  theology  and  Scrip- 
ture would  naturally  lead  to  freedom  of  investigation 
and  consequent  free  thought.  Thus  Bengel,  author  of 
the  much  studied  commentary,  the  ''Gnomon,"  and 
Semler,  the  earliest  of  the  higher  critics,  were  both  of 
the  pietistic  school.  But  after  all  deductions  are  made, 
all  unfortunate  tendencies,  all  extravagances  of  the  move- 
ment pointed  out,  the  truth  remains  that  it  was  neces- 
sary, if  the  fruits  of  the  Reformation  were  to  be  anything 
but  dead  scholasticism  and  formalism,  that  the  waters  of 
German  religious  life  should  be  troubled  by  a  strong 


Religious  Conditions  in  Germany 
angel  of  the  Lord.  That  messenger  of  God  was  Pietism. 

Note:  The  authorities  used  in  the  preparation  of  the  introductory  chap- 
ter on  the  condition  of  Germany  are  first  and  foremost  Freytag  :  "  Bilder 
aus  der  deutschen  Vergangenheit"  (Leipzig,  1898),  Vols,  III  and  IV, 
and  Goebel:  "  Geschichte  des  Christhchen  Lebens  in  Westphal-Rheinischen 
Pfalz"  (Coblentz,  1852-62),  particularly  Vol.  II.  The  works  of  E. 
Belfort  Bax  :  "The  Peasants'  War"  (London  1899),  and  "Rise  and 
Fall  of  the  Anabaptists"  (London  and  New  York,  1903),  give  a  thorough 
understanding  of  those  earlier  movements,  though  disfigured  by  personal 
prejudice  against  church  leaders.  Kurtz  :  *'  Church  History,"  translated  by 
McPherson  (New  York,  1894),  is  exhaustive,  though  dull.  Vaughn's 
"Hours  with  the  Mystics"  (third  edition,  1879),  has  copious  extracts 
from  mystical  writings.  A  study  of  Arndt's  *' Wahres  Christen thum,"  of 
which  there  are  many  editions,  is  indispensable  to  an  understanding  of  the 
religious  thought  of  the  period.  So  is  the  secular  literature  ;  Klopstock's 
"Messiah,"  the  writings  of  Wieland  and  Herder  and  some  of  Goethe's 
works  (the  "Confessions  of  a  Fair  Saint"  in  "  Wilhelm  Meister"), 
Miss  Winkworth's  "Christian  Singers  of  Germany"  (Philadelphia,  1869), 
with  the  hymns  of  the  time,  is  valuable.  Hedges'  "Hours  with  the  Ger- 
man Classics"  (Boston,  1892),  and  Kuno  Francke's  "Social  Forces  in 
German  Literature,"  give  helpful  sidelights.  The  "  List  of  Works  Con- 
sulted "  in  the  preparation  of  my  earlier  book,  "  The  Germans  in  Colonial 
Times"  (Lippincott,  Philadelphia,  1901),  gives  titles  of  many  other  books 
and  articles  bearing  more  or  less  remotely  on  the  subject  of  this  work  which 
may  be  serviceable  to  anyone  wishing  to  make  a  more  detailed  study  of  the 
matter. 


23 


CHAPTER    II 

THE   SEPARATISTS 

The  first  German  emigration  to  America  was  of 
Separatists  and  the  earliest  emigrants  were  nearly  all 
of  this  religious  persuasion.  The  Separatists  were  of 
two  sorts :  those  who  separated  themselves  from  the 
organized  churches,  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed,  and 
those  who  did  not  come  out  from  any  church,  but 
formed  groups  or  loosely  cohering  sects  of  their  own. 
The  latter  kind  were  most  commonly  thrust  out  by  per- 
secution ;  the  former,  the  "churchly  Separatists,"  as  they 
are  called  by  Goebel  in  his  "  Geschichte  des  Christlichen 
Lebens,"  often  left  the  Babylon  of  some  established 
church  from  an  exaggerated  opinion  of  ecclesiastical 
corruption  and  their  own  superior  righteousness. 

First  of  the  Separatist  emigration  in  point  of  time, 
number  and  importance  were  the  Mennonites.  These 
followers  of  Menno  Simon  had  had  surcease  from  severe 
persecution  for  more  than  a  century  when  Penn  made 
known  among  the  Dutch  Mennonites  the  plans  for  a 
colony  of  religious  freedom.  The  Princes  of  the  House 
of  Orange,  beginning  with  WilHam  the  Silent,  had  found 
the  "Weaponless  Christians" — their  chosen  name — so 
peaceable,  harmless  and  industrious  that  they  had  granted 
the  sect  a  toleration  expressly  denied  Anabaptists  by  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia.    Thus  Holland  became  the  natural 

24 


The  Separatists 

refuge  of  the  Mennonites,  and  the  centre  of  their 
church  ;~from  that  land  went  out  help  to  the  poor 
brethren  in  Germany;  there  were  printed  their  Bibles 
and  hymn  books  and  Confession  of  Faith,  and  the 
ponderous  history  of  their  martyrs. 

In  Germany  they  were  settled  in  the  Pfalz,  invited 
thither  by  the  elector,  Karl  Ludwig,  in  1671  ;  also  in 
Elsass,  reinforced  by  "  the  Switzers  which  were  fled  thither 
from  Zurich."^  These  Anabaptists  of  the  Palatinate 
were  said  to  be  industrious,  supporting  their  own  pastors 
and  sick  members,  but  not  in  communion  with  other 
Mennonists.  '*  Most  Protestants  are  very  willing  to 
employ  them,  because  they  are  sober,  industrious  and 
understand  all  trades  except  such  machines  and  instru- 
ments as  are  made  use  of  in  war."  * 

The  chief  seat  of  the  German  Mennonites,  however, 
was  Crefeld,  very  near  the  Holland  boundary ;  it  became 
in  some  sort  a  Mennonite  capital.  The  prosperity  of 
the  town  comes  from  the  industries  brought  thither  by 
Mennonite  weavers.  Crefeld  was  a  centre  for  many  and 
divers  Separatists  ; — there  the  Labadists  were  numerous  ; 
the  sweet-spirited  mystic  Hochman  von  Hochenau,  the 
French  nobleman  and  hermit,  de  Marsay,  the  saintly 
hymn-writer,  Tersteegen,  and  many  others  came  and 
went,  or  lived  in  Crefeld,  or  wrote  to  religious  friends 
there.  But  the  most  important  visitor  to  Crefeld — im- 
portant for  the  purposes  of  this  narrative — was  the  rich, 

^  Preface   to  the   Mennonite  Confession  of  Faith,  reprinted  by  Andrew 
Bradford  in  Philadelphia,  1727. 

2  0tt,  quoted  in  Picart,  Religious  Ceremonies,  Vol.  VII,  London,  1737. 

25 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

gifted  young  English  Quaker  who  came  there  repeat- 
edly, preached  to  large  congregations  of  Mennonites  and 
so  interested  them  that  a  small  band  decided  to  cross 
the  wide  Atlantic  to  their  powerful  friend's  new  province, 
and  there  seek  worldly  and  spiritual  prosperity. 

On  William  Penn's  second  ** religious  visit"  to  Ger- 
many, he  became  acquainted  with  a  choice  circle  of 
Pietists  in  Frankfort,  a  little  collegia  pie  talis,  which  met 
in  the  Saalhof,  the  mansion  of  one  of  its  wealthier  mem- 
bers. Among  its  members  were  many  noble,  wealthy 
and  learned  people,  but  the  only  one  who  concerns  our 
story  was  the  young  Franconian  doctor  of  laws,  Francis 
Daniel  Pastorius.  He  was  fascinated  by  Penn,  a  most 
attractive  and  charming  gentleman ;  but  Pastorius  and 
his  friends  of  the  Saalhof  were  especially  delighted  by 
the  prospect  of  forming  a  colony  in  the  American  wilder- 
ness, far  from  the  wickedness,  strifes,  and  persecutions 
which  distressed  the  godly  in  Europe,  and  they  eagerly 
entered  into  the  project  of  purchasing  land.  Twenty- 
five  thousand  acres  were  bought  in  the  American  forest. 
Pastorius  was  made  the  agent  of  the  "Frankfort  Com- 
pany," and  sailed  for  the  New  World  on  the  ship 
America,  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  coming  of  the  rest 
of  the  Frankfort  friends. 

But  alas,  for  the  fallibility  of  human  expectations! 
Not  one  of  the  Saalhof  circle  ever  joined  their  agent 
Pastorius  in  Pennsylvania.  Instead,  there  came  in  the 
autumn  of  1683  on  the  Concord,  a  little  company  of 
energetic  Mennonite  weavers  from  Crefeld,  to  whom 
Penn  had  also  sold  land  in  his  province  and  who  did  not 

26 


The  Separatists 

intrust  their  affairs  to  any  agent,  but  went  themselves  to 
take  possession. 

There  were  thirty-three  of  these  ''  Pennsylvania  Pil- 
grims," as  Whittier  has  sung  them; — they  were  nearly 
all  connected  by  blood  and  marriage,  and  belonged  to 
the  Mennonite  sect.  The  Concord  had,  as  an  English 
Quaker  who  was  a  fellow  passenger  tells  us,  **a  very 
comfortable  passage."  Shortly  after  arriving  their  land 
was  surveyed  for  them  and,  meeting  in  the  cave  where 
Pastorius  was  lodged  on  the  river  bank,  the  Crefeld 
friends  drew  lots  for  the  ground  they  were  to  occupy  and 
Germantown  was  founded.  Pastorius  says  :  'Tt  could 
not  be  described,  nor  would  it  be  believed  by  coming 
generations  in  what  want  and  need,  and  with  what  Chris- 
tian contentment  and  persistent  industry  this  German- 
town-ship  started."  ''Want  and  need"  soon  gave  way 
before  the  persistent  industry  of  the  Mennonite  colonists. 
Yearly  they  received  accessions  from  home ;  the  immi- 
grants were  industrious,  often  men  of  substance  or  of 
learning;  and  all  cheerful,  courageous  and  God-fearing. 

A  year  after  the  beginning  of  the  '*  Germantown-ship," 
a  very  different  sort  of  colony  landed  in  Lord  Baltimore's 
new  province  of  Maryland — the  Labadists  of  Bohemia 
Manor.  After  leaving  successively  the  Jesuit  order  and 
the  Catholic  church,  Labadie  had  separated  himself  from 
the  Reformed  church  as  well  and  headed  a  little  com- 
munity of  his  own.  For  a  time  the  Labadists  enjoyed 
the  protection  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  the  Abbess  of 
Herford,  but  their  enthusiastic  excesses  drove  them  from 
this  asylum.      They  then  went  to  a  nobleman's  estate, 

27 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

Wiewaert,  in  Holland,  where  they  soon  found  themselves 
straitened  to  support  so  large  a  community,  and  they 
looked  about  for  a  place  to  which  to  send  a  colony. 
Two  of  their  number,  Sluyter  and  Bankers,  went  to  spy 
out  the  land  in  America.  They  made  some  friends  and 
converts,  notably  Pieter  Beyaert,  the  ancestor  of  the 
Bayard  family,  and  Ephraim  Hermann,  son  of  Augus- 
tine Hermann,  the  Lord  of  Bohemia  Manor  in  Mary- 
land. The  younger  Hermann  procured  land  for  them 
from  his  unwilHng  father,  and  a  colony  was  founded 
there  in  1683,  which  never  exceeded  100  men,  women 
and  children  in  numbers,  lapsed  woefully  from  the  high 
plane  of  Labadie's  teaching  and  perished  utterly,  in  the 
early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  whole  epi- 
sode is  scarcely  worth  mention,  did  it  not  show  how 
widespread  was  the  drawing  towards  the  new  world  of 
religious  freedom  among  the  sectaries  and  Separatists  of 
the  old  world. 

Meanwhile  Pastorius  and  his  Mennonite  fellow  towns- 
men were  so  far  prospered  that  they  had  means  to 
build  a  church, — at  first  probably  a  Quaker  meeting 
house;  but  presently  they  decided  that  ''although  they 
did  not  agree,  since  at  this  time  the  most  were  still 
Quakers,  nevertheless  they  found  it  good  to  have  exer- 
cises together"  and  presently  ordained  William  Rutting- 
hausen  as  their  preacher.  Thus  the  little  Mennonite 
flock  increased  and  multiplied,  and  as  the  land  was 
gradually  taken  up,  daughter  churches  were  established 
in  other  settlements  around. 

In  1688  there  went  out  from  four  of  these  Germantown 

28 


The  Separatists 

colonists  to  the  Quaker  **  Monthly  Meeting  "  the  first 
public  protest  made  on  this  continent  against  the 
holding  of  slaves.  It  was  immediately  stifled  in  the 
meeting,  for  English  Friends  had  not  then  the  tender 
conscience  of  German  Christians  ;  that  protest  was  un- 
known save  to  a  few  antiquarians  for  almost  two  cent- 
uries ;  nevertheless  it  was  the  brave  and  unselfish  begin- 
ning of  a  great  moral  conflict,  and  **  when  hereafter  men 
trace  analytically  the  causes  which  led  to  Gettysburg 
and  Appomattox  they  will  begin  with  the  tender  con- 
sciences of  the  linen  weavers  and  husbandmen  of 
Germantown."  ^ 

^Pennypacker's  Settlement  of  Germantown,  p.  145.  Apparently  this 
tender  conscience  among  the  Mennonites  lasted  until  John  Woolman's 
time,  for  he  notes  in  his  account  of  a  religious  journey  in  1758  :  "  A  friend 
gave  me  some  account  of  a  religious  society  among  the  Dutch,  called  Men- 
nonists,  and  amongst  other  things  related  a  passage  in  substance  as  follows: 
One  of  the  Mennonists  having  acquaintance  with  a  man  of  another  society  at 
a  considerable  distance,  and  being  with  his  wagon  on  business  near  the 
house  of  his  said  acquaintance,  and  night  coming  on,  he  had  thoughts  of 
putting  up  with  him,  but  passing  by  his  fields  and  observing  the  distressed 
appearance  of  his  slaves,  he  kindled  a  fire  in  the  woods  hard  by  and  lay 
there  that  night.  His  said  acquaintance  hearing  where  he  had  lodged,  and 
afterwards  meeting  the  Mennonist,  told  him  of  it,  adding  he  should  have 
been  heartily  welcome  at  his  house,  and  from  their  acquaintance  in  former 
times  wondered  at  his  conduct  in  that  case.  The  Mennonist  replied,  *  Ever 
since  I  lodged  by  thy  field  I  have  wanted  an  opportunity  to  speak  with 
thee.  I  had  intended  to  come  to  thy  house  for  entertainment,  but  seeing 
thy  slaves  at  their  work,  and  observing  the  manner  of  their  dress,  I  had  no 
liking  to  come  and  partake  with  thee.'  He  then  admonished  him  to  use 
them  with  more  humanity,  and  added  :  '  As  I  lay  by  the  fire  that  night,  I 
thought  that  as  I  was  a  man  of  substance  thou  wouldst  have  received  me 
freely  ;  but  if  I  had  been  as  poor  as  one  of  thy  slaves,  and  had  no  j^ower  to 
help  myself,  I  should  have  received  from  thy  hand  no  kinder  usage  than 
they.'  "      (Journal.      Boston  ed.  1872,  p.  122.) 

29 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

Among  the  additions  to  the  colony  was  one  of 
strange  and  pathetic  interest.  In  1694  there  came  to 
Germantown  a  blind  old  man  led  by  his  aged  wife.  On 
inquiry  it  appeared  that  he  was  a  Mennonist  and  so  a 
collection  was  made  for  him  by  the  preacher  Rutting- 
hausen,  a  lot  was  given  him,  a  Httle  house  built  and  a 
tree  planted  in  front  of  it.  How  much  of  his  stoiy  was 
known  at  the  time  did  not  appear  ;  but  we  now  know 
that  just  before  Oliver  Cromwell's  death  a  Dutch  Men- 
nonite  named  Cornells  Plockhoy  sent  him  two  commu- 
nications, in  which  wxre  set  forth  the  plans  of  a  Chris- 
tian commonwealth  wherein  church  and  state  should  be 
wholly  separate,  where  rich  and  poor  should  be  on  an 
equaHty  of  labor,  and  where  **no  lordship  or  servile 
slavery  shall  burden  our  company."  The  death  of  Crom- 
well and  the  disorders  of  the  Restoration  put  an  end  to 
any  hopes  Plockhoy  might  have  had  of  help  from  the 
English  rulers  for  realizing  his  dream.  He  returned  to 
his  Dutch  home,  and  thence  in  1662,  led  out  a  colony 
of  twenty-five  people,  Mennonites  like  their  leader,  to 
**the  Valley  of  the  Swans"  ^  in  New  Netherlands. 

The  site  was  not  ill-chosen,  although,  indeed,  a  col- 
ony led  thither  thirty  years  before  had  been  exterminated 
by  the  Indians,  the  bones  of  the  massacred  being  still 
scattered  on  the  shore.  Nor  was  Plockhoy's  scheme  a 
visionary  or  fanatic  one  ; — the  modern  reader  is  struck 
by  his  broadmindedness,  his  astonishing  forecast  of  the 
most  advanced  modern  social  conditions.  His  proj- 
ect proves    the  intellectual    ability    of   the    Netherland 

*  Now  Lewes,  Delaware. 

30 


The  Separatists 

Mennonites.  But  the  fates  were  against  him.  When,  as  a 
result  of  the  war  between  the  Dutch  and  English,  New 
Netherlands  was  lost  to  the  former,  the  English  governor 
of  New  York  sent  a  boat  to  the  Valley  of  the  Swans, 
demolished  the  settlement  and  carried  off  "what  be- 
longed to  the  Quaking  Society  of  Plockhoy  to  a  very 
naile."  The  fate  of  the  settlers  is  still  a  mystery  ; 
but  the  blind  old  man  who  found  refuge  at  German- 
town  in  1694  after  more  than  three  decades  of  trackless 
wanderings  was  Cornelis  Plockhoy. 

In  this  same  year  there  came  to  Germantown  another 
band  of  settlers  not  in  the  least  like  this  gifted  and  hap- 
less prophet,  nor  like  the  staid  and  sensible  burghers 
who  made  constant  addition  to  the  number  and  effi- 
ciency of  the  community.  These  were  the  students  of 
Jakob  Boehme,  the  so-called  Rosicrucians,  the  commu- 
nity of  the  "Woman  in  the  Wilderness,"  the  Hermits  of 
the  Wissahickon.  By  these  several  names  are  they 
known  to  posterity;  but  little  that  is  trustworthy  is  known 
of  them,  their  life  or  their  opinions.  The  community 
was  first  gathered  by  a  pastor  of  Wijrtemberg,  Zimmer- 
man by  name,  of  whose  learning  and  piety  Gerard 
Croese,  the  Quaker  historian,  speaks  warmly.  Several 
university  men,  clergymen,  teachers  and  students,  were 
attracted  by  Zimmerman  and  desired  to  depart  with  him 
from  "those  Babilonish  coasts,  to  these  American  Plan- 
tations .  .  .  wherein  they  might  mind  this  one  thing 
to  wit:  to  show  with  unanimous  consent  their  Faith  and 
Love  in  the  Spirit  in  converting  of  people,  but  at 
the    same   time  to  sustain   their   bodies   by   their  daily 

31 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

labour."^  The  Hermits  of  the  Wissahickon  were  not  very 
successful  in  "showing  Love,"  for  after  Zimmerman's 
death — which  occurred  on  the  eve  of  the  embarkation 
from  Rotterdam — the  new  head  of  the  community, 
Koster,  on  the  voyage  over,  excommunicated,  another 
member,  Falkner,  then  started  a  rival  society  which  he 
named  "The  House  of  Peace."  This  having  disintegrated 
he  joined  the  secession  from  the  Quakers  led  by  George 
Keith,  but  found  himself  not  wanted  there  ;  finally  he 
sailed  back  to  Europe,  where  he  taught  the  numerous 
languages  which  he  knew  and  "  maintained  stoutly  that  he 
would  never  die  and  came  pretty  near  keeping  his  word, 
since  he  reached  the  age  of  ninety-eight  years  and 
retained  his  health  and  vivacity  until  the  last" 

Kelpius,  w^ho  was  chosen  head  of  the  hermit  society 
instead  of  the  erratic  Koster,  was  a  learned,  devout  and 
lovely  character,  but  died  young,  and  then  the  society  of 
the  Woman  in  the  Wilderness  fell  to  pieces.  Several 
scattered  members  of  the  community  continued  a  her- 
mit existence  near  Germantown  for  many  years,  teach- 
ing a  little  school,  practising  alchemy,  herb  doctoring, 
casting  nativities  ;  or  following  the  more  worldly  craft  of 
book-binding,  but  above  all,  studying  Jakob  Boehme's 
theosophical  writings.  The  Falkner  brothers,  the  most 
clear-headed  of  these  mystics,  soon  left  the  community 
and  became  useful  ministers  of  the  Lutheran  church. 
The  Hermits  of  the  Wissahickon,  as  a  community,  were 
nearly  without  influence  on  the  religious  life  of  Pennsyl- 
vania ;  but   they  deserve    notice  as  straws  which  show 

1  Contemporary  letter  in  possession  of  Governor  Pennypacker. 

32 


The  Separatists 

what  way  the  Separatistic  wind  blew  in  those  times. 
Their  quaint,  old-world  rites  and  supposed  Rosicrucian 
opinions  have  given  rise  to  much  popular  interest  and 
much  imaginative,  and  inaccurate,  writing. 

Meantime  the  colonists  of  Germantown  had  founded 
a  town  government,  which  died  of  inanition  in  a  short 
time,  since  the  religious  principles  of  Mennonites  did 
not  permit  them  to  take  part  in  government.  They 
built  themselves  a  church,  and  started  a  school,  taught 
by  Pastorius,  and  for  which  he  wrote  and  published  a 
primer,  the  first  original  school-book  printed  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. A  colony  of  German  Friends,  Quaker  converts 
made  by  William  Ames  and  visited  by  Penn,  came  over 
— the  only  Quakers  of  Teutonic  nationaHty — and  placed 
the  name  of  their  village,  Kreigsheim  (near  Worms)  in 
the  form  of  Cresheim  in  the  nomenclature  of  German- 
town.  Later,  German  Mennonites  of  the  Amish  variety 
came  from  the  Palatinate,  though  they  held  no  fellow- 
ship with  the  Dutch  followers  of  Menno,  having  excom- 
municated the  latter  on  the  burning  question  of  the 
rightfulness  of  wearing  buttons  instead  of  hooks  and 
eyes.  The  ''ban"  of  which  Mennonites  have  always 
made  great  use,  considering  that  they  are  a  peace  sect, 
was  freely  employed  by  many  sects  of  the  Mennonites 
against  one  another. 

A  notable  number  of  books  were  written  in  the  Ger- 
mantown colony  from  its  earliest  years,  which  goes  far 
to  contradict  the  impression  of  the  first  Teutonic  settle- 
ment in  America  being  one  of  "  German  boors  " — to 
quote  Franklin's  unhappy  expression — or,  as  exclusively 
3  33 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

composed  of  simple  weavers  and  farmers.  Of  those  con- 
nected with  the  colony  as  ''promoters,"  to  borrow  a 
modern  word,  or  as  actual  settlers,  sixteen  **  wrote  books 
and  produced  literary  labors,  some  of  them  of  magni- 
tude and  importance."  ^  Here  also  was  begun  the  weav- 
ing of  Hnen  and  of  cloth  and  the  making  of  paper.  The 
little  town  was  the  metropolis  of  German  America,  even 
long  after  losing  its  Mennonite  and  Quaker  coloring,  or 
Separatistic  tendencies.  Thither  came  the  German  set- 
tlers direct  after  their  landing  ;  from  it  went  out  the  set- 
tlers who  gradually  spread  over  Montgomery,  Lancaster 
and  Berks  Counties. 

Of  one  of  the  earliest  settlers,  said  to  be  Kurtz,  this 
legend  has  been  preserved:^  '*  In  the  year  1720  a  thou- 
sand acres  were  offered  to  an  influential  member  of  the 
Amish  faith  by  the  proprietary  agent,  but  he  refused  the 
grant  saying:  '  It  is  beyond  my  desire  as  also  beyond 
my  ability  to  clear  ;  if  clear,  beyond  my  ability  to  culti- 
vate ;  if  cultivated,  it  would  yield  more  than  my  family 
can  consume  ;  and  as  the  rules  of  our  society  forbid  the 
disposal  of  the  surplus,  I  cannot  accept  of  your  liberal 
offer,  but  you  may  divide  it  among  my  married  chil- 
dren who  at  present  reside  with  me.'"  If  this  was  really 
Kurtz,  the  first  ironmaster  of  Pennsylvania — having 
built  a  furnace  on  the  Octoraro  in  1726 — he  evidently 
had  not  the  usual  objection  of  his  sect  to  engaging  in 
other  occupations  than  farming. 

1  See  Pennypacker's  Settlement  of  Germantown  for  a  list  of  these  authors, 
p.  290,  and  reproductions  of  many  title  pages. 

2  See  Redmond  Coningham's  MS.  ''  History  of  the  Mennonists  and  Am- 
ish," in  possession  of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 

34 


The  Separatists 

It  was  in  1727  that  the  project,  long  before  mooted  at 
Germantown,  of  republishing  the  Mennonite  Confession 
of  Faith  was  carried  into  effect.  The  elders  signing  it 
were  three  from  Germantown,  five  from  "  Shipack,"  five 
from  "  Canastoge,"  two  from  Manatany  and  one  from 
Great  Swamp  ; — these  names  indicating  the  places  in 
which  the  sect  had  organized  churches.  We  know  that 
from  171 1  to  1732  the  committee  *' on  foreign  needs"  of 
Mennonites  at  Amsterdam  were  constantly  giving  help 
to  distressed  brethren  of  the  faith  who  desired  to  go  to 
Pennsylvania/  At  length  the  committee  abandoned  the 
work  in  despair,  as  too  great  for  them  ;  but  the  emigrants 
were  not  stopped  thereby,  nor  did  help  from  private 
sources  cease.  We  cannot  estimate  the  numbers  of 
•*  defenceless  Christians  "  who  took  refuge  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, save  by  the  fact  that  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  American  Mennonites  reported  to  their 
brethren  in  Holland  between  two  and  three  hundred 
communities  scattered  over  Pennsylvania  and  in  the 
Valley  of  Virginia.^ 

^Dr,  de  Hoop  Schefifer  of  Amsterdam,  translated  in  Pennypacker's  His- 
torical and  Biographical  Essays. 

2  The  earliest  of  these  bands  was  the  little  knot  of  persecuted  Menno- 
nites ejected  from  Berne,  parted  from  their  wives  and  children  at  Mann- 
heim on  the  Palatinate  and  liberated  on  reaching  the  Netherlands.  The 
Mennonites  at  Nymwegen  were  much  touched  by  the  sufferings  and 
patience  of  these  exiles  and  willingly  helped  them,  first  to  return  to  the 
Palatinate  to  their  families  if  possible,  then  to  emigrate  to  Pennsylvania. 
These  were  perhaps  the  Swiss  Mennonites  for  whom  de  Graffenried  sought 
an  asylum  in  North  Carolina,  and  some  of  them  came  under  the  leadership 
of  Hans  Herr  and  Martin  Kiindig  to  Lancaster  County  in  Pennsylvania 
and  were  the  forerunners  of  the  large  Mennonite  emigration  there  in  later 
years. 

35 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Tinmes 

Sometime  before  the  publication  of  the  Christian  Con- 
fession, as  it  is  called,  there  arrived  in  Penn's  province 
the  forerunners  of  another  Separatist  sect — the  largest 
organized  body  of  them  outside  the  Mennonites.  These 
were  the  people  called  Dunkards  or  Dunkers  ;  Germans 
of  their  time  named  them  Schwarzenau  Taiifer,  or  Tunk- 
ers,  from  a  familiar  word  meaning  to  dip ; — this,  of 
course,  referred  to  their  practice  of  immersion  in  baptism. 
The  Dunkards  were  often  confused  with  the  Mennonites 
in  earlier  times,  but  they  were  quite  distinct  in  origin  and 
history,  their  similarity  extending  no  further  than  that 
both  were  organized  Separatist  bodies,  had  a  ''  testimony" 
against  infant  baptism  and  war,  and  that  both  were  strong 
in  the  region  of  Crefeld,  the  *' Separatist  capital." 

In  studying  the  origin  of  the  Dunkers  (to  give  them 
their  best-known  and  more  accurate  English  name),  we 
are  brought  face  to  face  with  the  lovely  character  of 
Hochmann  von  Hochenau — a  character  and  history  so 
representative  of  the  best  and  noblest  in  churchly  Sepa- 
ratism that  a  short  study  of  it  may  be  edifying  as  well  as 
instructive. 

Ernst  Christopher  Hochmann  von  Hochenau  was  born 
in  1670  of  a  noble  Saxon  family.  He  was  brought  up  a 
Lutheran,  went  to  the  newly-founded  University  of  Halle 
to  hear  the  lectures  of  the  exiled  Professor  Thomasius, 
was  converted  there  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
elder  Francke,  and  afterwards  spent  some  time  at  the 
other  Pietistic  university  of  Giessen,  under  the  brilliant 
and  learned  Separatist  Gottfried  Arnold.  If  these  names 
show  the  influence  under  which  he  was  educated,  those 

36 


The  Separatists 

following  indicate  the  writers  whom  he  most  prized. 
First  of  all  his  ''  Herzensbruder  "  Arnold  ;  then  Jane 
Leade  and  Dr.  Pordage,  the  English  '*  Philadelphians  " 
and  students  of  Boehme  ;  Menno  Simons  and  David  Joris, 
the  Mennonite ;  Boehme  himself;  the  French  mystic, 
Poiret;  Molinos  the  Quietist,  and  Petersen,  who  was 
prominent  in  the  pietistic  circle  of  Frankfort  whence  Pas- 
torius  went  out  to  Germantown.  In  1698  Hochmann 
himself  was  in  Frankfort  laboring  unsuccessfully  for  the 
conversion  of  Jews  ;  abandoning  this,  he  spent  the  next 
years  of  his  life  going  up  and  down  the  land,  through 
all  northern  and  western  Germany.  He  was  persecuted 
in  every  imaginable  way — flogged,  exiled,  tried  before 
courts  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  and  imprisoned  half-a- 
dozen  times  in  various  parts  of  Germany,  one  imprison- 
ment lasting  a  whole  year.  During  this  incarceration  at 
Niirnberg  (where  he  had  once  been  offered  a  high  posi- 
tion in  the  city  government),  he  was  required  to  furnish 
a  statement  of  his  beliefs,  from  which  statement  we  learn 
that  his  heresies  were  on  the  subjects  of  the  ordinances, 
the  millennium,  the  possible  restoration  of  the  wicked, 
and  the  superiority  of  the  celibate  over  the  married  life. 
However  indifferent  these  opinions  seem  to  us,  they  were 
by  no  means  so  regarded  by  the  Church  and  State  in 
Hochmann's  time,  and  he  suffered  everything  for  propa- 
gating them.  At  length  the  Countess  Hedwig  Sophie 
of  Berleberg  gave  him  a  refuge  in  her  dominions  at 
Schwarzenau  and  there  Hochmann  built  himself  a  little 
house  of  two  rooms,  which  he  called  Friedensburg — 
•'  the  castle  of  peace," — though  it  was  not  destined  to  be 

37 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

such.  On  his  religious  journeys  through  Germany, 
Hochmann  was  always  accompanied  by  friends  who 
took  care  of  him,  a  very  necessary  devotion  on  their 
part,  since  the  mystic  ''did  not  notice  outward  occur- 
rences, so  that  some  one  must  go  before  him  when  he 
traveled  from  place  to  place,  whom  he  followed  like  a 
lamb."  One  of  these  brethren  was  Alexander  Mack,  a 
well-to-do  miller  of  Schwarzenau,  who  in  pursuance  of 
Hochmann's  teachings  had  left  the  church  in  which  he 
had  been  brought  up  and  become  a  Separatist.  A  little 
circle  which  gathered  around  Hochmann  for  instruction 
was  left  to  the  leadership  of  Mack  in  Hochmann's 
absence.  During  Hochmann's  long  imprisonment  in 
Niirnberg  the  pious  people  of  Schwarzenau,  as  a  result 
of  their  Bible  study,  came  to  a  belief  in  adult  baptism. 
The  little  society — a  score  of  simple,  uneducated  work- 
ing-people, men  and  women — were  much  perplexed  and 
divided.  Hochmann  from  his  prison  wrote  them  his 
opinion  that  those  baptized  in  infancy  needed  not  to  be 
rebaptized,  but  the  Schwarzenau  people,  under  the  lead- 
ership of  Alexander  Mack,  believed  infant  baptism  by 
sprinkling  invalid,  and  insisted  upon  immersion  in  run- 
ning water  so  as  to  imitate  exactly  Christ's  baptism.  On 
this  point  the  two  friends — bound  together  by  love  and 
reverence,  by  journeyings  and  labors  and  perils  for  the 
common  cause — were  sundered  ;  and  so  sharp  was  the 
contention  between  them  that  when  afterward,  in  Switz- 
erland, Hochmann  spoke  a  few  words  of  exhortation  at 
a  meeting  held  by  Mack,  the  latter  abused  him  violently, 
calling  him  a  hypocrite  and  an  "erring  spirit,"  to  which 

38 


The  Separatists 

Hochmann  made  no  retort ;  but  after  the  meeting  he 
went  to  Mack,  embraced  and  kissed  him  and  said  affec- 
tionately, '*  When  thou,  dear  brother,  art  in  Heaven  and 
seest  me  also  enter,  thou  wilt  be  glad  and  will  say,  '  Oh, 
see  !  there  cometh  also  our  dear  brother  Hochmann  !'  " 
The  difference  between  the  two  men  seems  to  have 
arisen  upon  the  fact  that  Hochmann  at  that  time  was  a 
determined  Separatist,  and  enjoined  on  all  those  whom 
he  "awakened"  the  duty  of  coming  out  of  the  church  ; 
while  Mack  and  his  Schwarzenau  friends,  although  led 
by  their  study  of  the  Scripture  to  think  that  baptism  by 
immersion  was  an  ordinance  necessary  to  salvation,  held 
it  also  indispensable  that  there  should  be  an  organiza- 
tion, a  church,  to  administer  this  and  other  ordinances. 
The  son  of  Alexander  Mack  has  left  a  sketch  of  the 
founding  of  the  Brethren's  church,  in  which  he  says  : ' 
"  These  eight  persons  covenanted  and  united  together  as 
brothers  and  sisters  into  a  covenant  of  the  cross  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  form  a  church  of  Christian  believers,  and  when 
they  found  in  authentic  histories  that  the  primitive  Chris- 
tians in  the  first  and  second  centuries  uniformly  accord- 
ing to  the  command  of  Christ  were  planted  into  the 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  by  three-fold  immersion  into  the 
water-bath  of  holy  baptism  .  .  .  they  were  anx- 
iously desirous  to  use  the  means  appointed  by  Christ 
himself  .  .  .  They  therefore  commanded  of  him 
who  led  in  preaching  the  Word  (Mack  ?)  to  immerse 
them  .  .  .  They  concluded  to  unite  in  fasting  and 
prayer,  in  order  to  obtain  of  Christ  himself,   the  founder 

^Abridged  from  translation  in  Brumbaugh's  German  Baptist  Brethren. 

39 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

of  all  his  ordinances,  a  direction  and  opening  in  this 
matter  .  .  .  They  cast  lots  to  determine  which 
of  the  four  brethren  should  baptize  (the  leader).  Being 
thus  prepared  the  eight  went  out  together  one  morning 
in  solitude  to  a  stream  called  the  Eder  and  the  brother 
upon  whom  the  lot  had  fallen  baptized  first  that  brother 
who  had  desired  to  be  baptized  by  the  church  of  Christ 
and  he  baptized  him  by  whom  he  was  baptized  and  the 
remaining  three  brothers  and  three  sisters  and  when  all 
had  come  up  out  of  the  water  they  were  made  to  rejoice 
with  great  inward  joyfulness  .  .  .  They  were 
enabled  to  testify  publicly  in  their  meeting  to  the  truth 
and  the  Lord  granted  them  his  special  grace  so  that  still 
more  became  obedient  to  the  truth  and  thus  within 
seven  years'  time  there  was  not  only  a  large  church  in 
Schwarzenau,  but  here  and  there  in  the  Palatinate  there 
were  lovers  of  the  truth  and  especially  in  Marienborn;  for 
the  church  in  the  Palatinate  was  persecuted  and  its  mem- 
bers then  came  to  Marienborn  ;  and  when  the  church 
here  became  large,  it  was  also  persecuted.  Then  they 
collected  in  Crefeld  where  they  found  liberty." 

That  his  spiritual  brothers  had  thus  decided  upon  the 
necessity  of  ordinances  and  a  visible  church  was  a  great 
grief  to  Hochmann.  His  later  years  were  lonely  and 
sad.  After  his  death  his  cottage  fell  to  pieces  and  his 
grave  remained  unmarked  until  it  was  visited  by  Ters- 
teegen,  the  mystic  and  poet,  who  had  been  converted 
by  a  spiritual  son  of  Hochmann  and  therefore  felt  a 
filial  interest  in  the  gentle,  loving  mystic.  He  begged 
the  aged  Countess  Hedwig,  Hochmann's  patroness,  to 

40 


The  Separatists 

put  a  stone  to  mark  the  grave  and  she  did  so  on  condi- 
tion that  Tersteegen  write  the  inscription,  which  he  did 
as  follows  : 

"  Wie  Hoch  is  nun  der  Mann,  der  hier  ein  Kindlein 

gar, 
Herzinning,  voller  Lieb,  doch  auch  voll  Glaubens 

war, 
Von  Zions  K6nigs  Pracht  er  zeugte  und  drum  litte  ; 
Sein    Geist  flog  endlich   hin   und   hier  zerfiel   die 

Hutte."  ' 

Years  after  Hochmann's  death,  Stephen  Koch,  leading  a 
hermit's  life  in  the  Pennsylvania  wilderness,  saw  in  a 
vision  a  -beautiful  man"  who  conducted  the  hermit  to 
the  heavenly  Jerusalem.  This  "lovely  man  "  was  Hoch- 
mann.  And  when  sixty  years  had  passed  since  Hoch- 
mann's earthly  tabernacle  fell  to  earth,  Jung  Stilling,  the 
friend  of  Goethe,  made  the  mystic  the  hero  of  his  novel 
''Theobald." 

The  newly-founded  church  also  introduced  the  rite  of 
foot-washing,  and  the  love-feast,  an  ordinary  meal  eaten 
before  the  communion  which  is  observed  in  the  even- 
ing,—thus  in  every  way  endeavoring  to  imitate  exactly 
the  administration  of  these  acts  by  Christ.  The  liberty 
which  the  Crefeld  congregation  found  was  not  of  long 
duration.  Persecution  soon  arose  ;  several  young  breth- 
ren were  arrested  and  imprisoned  at  Gulch  for  four  years, 

1  How  high  is  now  the  man,  who  once  was  Hke  a  child, 
Sincere  and  full  of  love  yet  also  full  of  faith, 
Of  Zion's  Kingdom's  fame  he  spoke  and  suffered  for  it. 
His  spirit  rose  to  it  and  here  decays  the  hut. 
41 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

and  Christian  Libe,  one  of  the  most  zealous  and  elo- 
quent of  the  new  church's  evangelists,  was  arrested  while 
preaching  in  Basel,  imprisoned,  and  on  his  refusal  to 
renounce  his  faith,  sent  to  the  galleys,  *'  and  had  to  work 
the  galling  oar  among  malefactors."  ^  The  church  in 
Schwarzenau  was  so  bitterly  persecuted  that  they  fled, 
under  the  leadership  of  Mack,  to  Friesland. 

Unfortunately  the  brave  and  eloquent  Libe,  who  suf- 
fered for  the  church,  was  not  as  charitable  as  he  was 
zealous.  One  of  the  members  of  his  Crefeld  congrega- 
tion married  a  Mennonite  girl ;  Libe,  against  the  advice 
of  the  other  elder,  Peter  Becker,  excommunicated  the 
erring  brother.  Becker  and  the  party  of  charity  who 
adhered  to  him  decided  to  leave  Germany,  and  so  in 
1 7 19  the  first  Dunker  congregation  came  to  America 
and  founded  the  Germantown  church,  served  by  Becker.^ 
Ten  years  after  this,  Alexander  Mack  brought  over  his 
refugee  congregation  from  Friesland. 

On  Mack's  arrival  he  found  a  sad  state  of  affairs 
among  the  Dunkers  in  America.  A  *'  root  of  bitterness  " 
had  sprung  up  to  trouble  them  and  this  root  was 
Conrad  Beissel.  Beissel  was  a  baker  by  trade,  the 
orphan  child  of  a  poor,  drunken  baker  in  the  Palatinate. 
Knocked  about  from  pillar  to  post  in  his  youth,  gay 
and  careless,  fond  of  fiddling  and  dancing,  he  was  sud- 
denly converted — by  the  direct  work  of  God  without  hu- 
man instrumentality,  he  averred — and  became  a  zealous 

1  Mack's  Historical  Sketch,  before  cited. 

2  Libe  afterwards  married  out  of  meeting  himself,  demitted  the  ministry 
and  his  church  died  out. 


The  Separatists 

Pietist.  Rivals  had  him  arrested  in  Heidelberg  and 
banished  on  a  charge  of  non-conformity.  He  took  refuge 
in  the  Wittgenstein  region  where  no  religious  opinion, 
however  extraordinary,  was  persecuted.  Thence,  with 
two  companions,  he  came  to  Pennsylvania,  that  ''Pella 
of  the  sects,"  as  Pastorius  called  it,  and  went  to  the 
wilds  of  Conestoga,  then  the  frontier,  where  he  was 
found  by  Peter  Becker  and  other  Brethren  while  on  a 
missionary  tour,  and  here  with  others  he  was  baptized. 

It  seemed  wise  to  Becker  to  leave  this  magnetic  and 
zealous  young  convert  in  charge  of  the  infant  congrega- 
tion thus  formed  at  Conestoga  ;  in  reality  nothing  could 
have  been  more  unwise.  Beissel  soon  began  to  teach 
new  doctrine  ;  first  the  obligation  to  keep  the  seventh 
day  as  the  Sabbath  ;  then  the  superior  sanctity  of  the 
celibate  state  ;  next  he  came  to  regard  his  Dunker  bap- 
tism as  invalid  and  he  and  his  brother  hermits  re-baptized 
themselves.  He  had  gathered  several  converts  to 
his  monastic  views  and  among  the  first  whom  he  baptized 
were  Israel  Eckerlin  and  Christopher  Saur.  Two  young 
girls,  Anna  and  Maria  Eicher,  desired  to  enter  his  semi- 
monastic  community  and  with  these  adherents,  Beissel 
having  resigned  his  leadership  of  the  Dunker  congrega- 
tion at  Conestoga,  the  New  World  monastery  and 
convent  of  Ephrata  was  organized.  Beissel's  most  noted 
converts  in  the  next  few  years  were  Conrad  Weiser  and 
Peter  Miller. 

As  soon  as  Mack  landed,  he  came  to  the  assistance 
of  Becker  against  this  fanatical  and  schismatic  move- 
ment ;  but  his  efforts  to  stem  the  tide  were  of  little  avail 

43 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

His  own  son,  Alexander  Mack,  Jr.,  was  for  a  time  an 
inmate  of  Ephrata  under  the  name  of  Brother  Sander ; 
and  in  1738-9  a  large  number  of  Bunkers  from  the 
Germantown  congregation  defected  to  Beissel.  This 
conflict  no  doubt  shortened  and  saddened  the  Hfe  of 
Alexander  Mack  ;  he  could  not  know,  as  we  now  do, 
that  Beissel's  community  would  be  but  a  passing  wonder 
and  would  die  with  its  founder,  while  the  Church  of  the 
Brethren  would  remain  until  the  present  time. 

The  character  and  fate  of  the  various  converts  men- 
tioned is  instructive  as  showing  the  influence  of  Ephrata 
upon  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  Saur's  connect- 
ion with  the  community  w^as  brief  and  unhappy.  His 
wife,  under  Beissel's  instruction,  left  her  husband  and 
became  an  inmate  of  the  convent  as  Sister  Marcella : 
Saur  then  departed  from  Lancaster  County  and  returned 
to  Germantown. 

Conrad  Weiser,  also  an  early  convert,  was  the  son  of 
one  of  the  "  poor  Palatines  "  sent  over  by  Queen  Anne  to 
her  colony  of  New  York.  After  much  ill-treatment  and 
suffering  there,  they  fled  through  the  wilderness  from 
Schoharie  to  Tulpehocken  in  Pennsylvania.  A  few 
years  after  this  emigration,  young  Weiser,  who  had  lived 
among  the  Indians  in  New  York  and  knew  their  lan- 
guage well,  came  to  Pennsylvania,  fell  under  Beissel's 
influence,  was  baptized  and  for  a  time  proved  a  very 
zealous  missionary  of  the  Ephrata  faith.  Two  of  his 
children  entered  the  society,  the  daughter,  Madlina, 
dying  in  the  convent.  But  Weiser  soon  had  opportunity 
given   him   through   one    of   his   old    Indian    friends  to 

44 


The  Separatists 

become  interpreter  for  the  province  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
''allowed  himself  to  be  taken  up  in  the  world."  He 
became  Indian  interpreter  ''  so  that  the  country  could 
neither  make  peace  nor  wage  war  with  the  Indians  with- 
out him,"  and  formally  resigned  from  the  Ephrata 
community,  sending  a  sharp  letter  of  reproof  to  them 
concerning  the  tyranny  and  spiritual  pride  which  he 
found  in  the  community. 

At  the  same  period  of  Beissel's  opening  ministry 
there  was  taken  into  his  community  the  first  representa- 
tive of  a  family  which  was  to  do  great  things  for  Ephrata 
and  suffer  hard  things  from  the  Beisselian  party  in  it ; — 
this  was  the  Eckerlin  family.  They  were  Pietists,  child- 
ren of  a  well-to-do  tradesman,  a  Rathsherr,  of  Strasburg, 
who  had  taken  refuge  from  church  persecution  in  the 
safe  haven  of  Schwarzenau.  After  his  death  his  widow 
and  four  sons  came  to  Germantown,  whither  presently  the 
rest  of  the  family  came.  Israel  first,  then  the  other  sons 
and  the  mother  went  to  Conestoga  to  be  under  Beissel's 
spiritual  care.  All  the  sons  finally  entered  the  monastery. 
They  were  active  exhorters  and  missionaries  and  suffered 
imprisonment  for  the  doctrine  they  propagated.  Finally 
Israel,  as  Brother  Onesimus,  became  prior  of  the  monas- 
tery. He  was  a  fine  business  man  and  under  him  the 
community  grew  rich.  It  maintained  five  different  kinds 
of  mills,  bought  all  the  farms  for  two  miles  around,  and, 
in  short,  made  Ephrata  a  proverb  for  industry.  Beissel, 
in  a  fit  of  pique,  once  resigned  to  Brother  Onesimus  the 
headship  of  the  community,  but  was  both  surprised  and 
disgusted  when  his  resignation  was  accepted.      With  the 

45 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

aid  of  Brother  Jaebez,  the  Eckerlin  family  were  at  last 
driven  out  from  Ephrata  and  went  "four  hundred  miles 
into  the  wilderness,"  to  New  River  in  the  present  West 
Virginia.  There  Indians  fell  upon  them,  took  the 
Eckerlins  prisoners  and  destroyed  the  nascent  hermitage  ; 
and  the  ultimate  fate  of  the  brothers  is  not  certainly  known 
but  it  is  thought  they  died  in  a  convent  in  France. 

The  ally  of  Beissel  in  his  reassertion  of  authority, 
Peter  Miller — "Brother  Jaebez" — is  an  extraordinary 
instance  of  Beissel's  occult  power  over  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  men.  Miller,  the  son  of  a  Palatine  clergyman, 
a  graduate  of  Heidelberg  University,  came  to  this  coun- 
try to  be  a  missionary  of  the  Reformed  church  in  the 
Pennsylvania  forests.  At  his  examination  and  ordina- 
tion by  the  presbytery  of  Philadelphia  they  pronounced 
him  "an  extraordinary  person  for  sense  and  learning." 
Yet  this  devout  and  learned  young  clergyman,  when  sent 
to  the  wilds  of  Conestoga,  was  so  fascinated  by  the  former 
baker  and  present  hermit  that  he  entered  the  Cloister, 
became  Beissel's  most  devout  adherent  and  finally  suc- 
ceeded after  "Father  Friedsam's"  death,  to  the  position 
of  "superintendent"  of  Ephrata.  ^ 

^  In  its  palmy  days  Ephrata  had  not  only  mills  and  farms,  but  schools  in 
which  Latin  was  so  well  taught  that  its  graduates  were  able  to  correspond 
with  their  monastic  teachers  in  that  language.  Brother  Obed,  who  was  the 
teacher  of  the  day  school  there,  established  a  Sunday  School  in  Ephrata, 
forty  years  before  Robert  Raikes,  in  which  Obed' s  daughter,  Sister  Petron- 
ella,  a  beautiful  and  lovable  girl,  was  the  first  woman  Sunday-School 
teacher  on  record.  The  arts  of  ornamental  writing  and  illumination  flour- 
ished in  the  Cloister,  and  a  unique  music,  described  as  being  of  an  un- 
earthly beauty,  was  invented  and  practised  under  Beissel's  personal  super- 
vision.    The  monks  set  up  a  press  of  their  own,  upon  which,  under  the 

46 


The  Separatists 

But  the  Ephrata  community,  its  leaders  and  its  spirit, 
have  ahvays  attracted  a  disproportionate  amount  of  atten- 
tion in  rehgious  history  ;  a  far  better  representative  of  the 
spirit  of  Dunker  Separatism  is  the  Saur  family,  father 
and  son,  and  their  work  for  German  culture.  When  the 
elder  Saur,  taking  his  only  child  with  him,  left  the  Con- 
estoga  home  which  had  been  broken  up  by  **  Sister 
Marcella's"  withdrawal  to  the  convent,  he  began  in 
Germantown  a  small  printing  business.  This,  under 
Saur's  energetic  and  competent  management,  became 
the  largest  business  of  the  kind  in  Pennsylvania.  Saur 
himself  was  probably  a  member  of  the  Dunker  com- 
munion. Being  asked  by  brethren  to  found  a  press  and 
disseminate  Dunker  Hterature,  he,  after  several  false 
starts,  succeeded  in  getting  type  and  a  press  which  had 
been  discarded  by  the  printers  of  the  famous  Separatist 
edition  of  the  Bible  called,  from  its  place  of  publication, 
the  '*  Berleburg  Bible."  The  edition  of  the  Scripture 
distributed  from  the  famous  pietistic  institutions  founded 
by  Francke  at  Halle  was  the  popular  one  with  church 
people  and  Saur  was  the  American  agent  for  both  the 
Berleburg  and  Halle  Bibles  ;  he  also  dealt  in  the  famous 
medicines  suppHed  from  Halle  and  in  general  carried 
on  a  business  as  various  as  that  which  was  conducted  at 
the  same  time  by  Benjamin  Franklin.      Saur's  first  inde- 

scholarly  Brother  Jaebez,  they  printed  many  books,  pamphlets  and  broad- 
sides, consisting  of  Mennonite  and  Dunker  rehgious  books,  Beissel's  works, 
the  hymns  of  the  Cloister,  and  last  but  not  least,  the  immense  and  mag- 
nificent Martyr  Book  of  the  Mennonites,  a  massive  folio  of  fifteen  hundred 
pages,  the  largest  book  printed  during  Colonial  times  in  Pennsylvania. 

47 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

pendent  publication  was  the  hymn  book  of  the  Ephrata 
cloister,  the  **Weyrauchs  Hiigel,"  or  Hill  of  Incense. 
The  blasphemous  adulation  of  Beissel  in  this  work 
offended  Saur,  who  had  of  course  private  reasons  for  a 
hatred  of  *'the  superintendent,"  and  led  to  the  setting 
up  of  the  Ephrata  press  to  print  their  own  literature. 
The  party  at  the  convent  which  was  opposed  to  Beissel 
rallied  around  Saur,  and  several  of  the  Ephrata  Brothers, 
who  were  experienced  in  such  matters,  assisted  Saur 
with  his  first  attempts  at  printing.  Conrad  Weiser 
helped  him  buy  paper  from  Franklin,  who  had  all  the 
printing  paper  in  the  province  in  his  control.  But  Saur 
did  not  long  need  help.  He  presently  began  the  publi- 
cation of  a  newspaper,  an  almanac,  and  in  1745  printed 
the  first  Bible  published  in  this  country  in  a  European 
tongue — the  great  '*  Germantown  Bible,"  a  monument 
of  typography  only  excelled  by  the  Ephrata  edition  of 
the  ''Bliitige  Schauplatz."  No  wonder  that  when  the 
last  sheet  was  printed,  Saur  burst  into  the  pious  excla- 
mation, ''  Dank  Gott,  es  ist  voUbracht !"  (''Thank  God, 
it  is  finished  !") 

Beside  the  Scriptures,  more  than  two  hundred  other 
works  proceeded  from  his  press  ;  and  he  is  justly  entitled 
to  the  commendation  of  being  '*  easily  the  foremost 
sower  of  good  seed  in  colonial  America."  ^  He  lived 
up  to  the  motto  of  his  press,  which  was  posted  in  a  con- 
spicuous place  in  the  printing  house  :  "  Zur  Ehre  Gottes 
und  des  Nachstens  Bestes."  ^     Most  of  his  work,  and 

1  Brumbaugh's  "Brethren,"  p.  374. 

2  To  the  Glory  of  God  and  the  Good  of  our  Neighbor. 

48 


The  Separatists 

in  particular  the  publication  of  the  Bible,  was  done  amid 
the  opposition  and  vilification  of  those,  both  clergymen 
and  laymen,  who  disliked  Saur's  separatistic  opinions. 

For  *'the  good  of  his  neighbor"  the  old  printer,  three 
years  before  his  death,  addressed  to  Governor  Denny 
two  long  epistles  ^  pleading  for  the  deliverance  of  the 
poor  German  immigrants  from  the  plundering  and 
oppression  of  the  shipmasters  who  brought  them  over 
and  in  whose  vessels  the  horrors  of  the  slave-traders' 
middle  passage  were  rivaled,  but  it  is  not  known  that 
the  appeal  produced  any  result 

When  the  elder  Saur  died,  in  175 1,  his  son  of  the 
same  name  took  upon  himself  the  burden  of  the  press. 
Christopher  Saur,  Jr.,  had  been  deprived  of  a  mother's 
care  in  his  youth  ; — it  was  not  until  1744,  after  twelve 
years'  residence  in  the  Ephrata  cloister,  that  Sister  Mar- 
cella  yielded,  probably  to  her  son's  entreaties,  and 
returned  to  her  husband's  home  in  Germantown.  But 
Christopher  had  the  advantage  of  a  most  excellent 
teacher,  the  pious  Mennonite  school-master,  Christopher 
Dock,  whose  beautiful  character  is  still,  after  more  than 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years,  redolent  of  the  odor  of 
sanctity.  So  grateful  was  young  Saur  for  this  teaching, 
that  he  induced  his  old  instructor  to  write  a  little 
account  of  his  method  of  teaching  school,  and  after 
overcoming  the  Mennonite's  pious  scruples  about  secur- 
ing praise  of  men,  won  from  him  the  little  tract  ^  which 
has  preserved  for  future  generations  a  description  of  one 

^  See  Brumbaugh,  p.  376  et  seq.  for  the  letters. 
2  Reprinted  in  Pennypacker's  Historical  and  Biographical  Essays. 
4  49 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

of  the  best  colonial  schools  and  school-masters.     This 
was  the  first  book  on  education  printed  in  America. 

As  to  the  younger  Saur's  religious  affiliations,  there  is 
not  the  uncertainty  which  affects  those  of  his  father  ; — 
Christopher  Saur  was  not  only  a  member,  but  an  elder, 
of  the  Dunker  church.  He  is  said  to  have  been  a 
preacher  of  great  power,  a  good  pastor,  and  so  benevo- 
lent that  the  poor  of  Germantown  called  him  the 
''bread  father."  The  business  which  he  inherited  he 
enlarged  beyond  any  similar  enterprise  in  colonial 
America ;  and  the  spirit  with  which  he  took  it  up  and 
conducted  it  may  be  judged  from  the  editorial,  as  we 
should  now  call  it,  with  which  he  announced  his  father's 
death  and  his  own  assumption  of  the  headship  of  the 
business  :  "I  had  rather  indeed  have  earned  my  bread 
by  continuing  in  the  book  binding  business,  and  so  have 
avoided  the  burden  and  responsibilities  of  a  printer 
but  I  find  it  laid  upon  me  for  God  and 
my  neighbor's  sake  .  .  .  Although  I  am  not,  nor 
do  I  hope  to  be,  so  richly  gifted  as  my  father,  I  will 
nevertheless  use  what  is  given  me  .  .  .  and  will 
not  allow  this  or  that  to  turn  me  from  what  I  believe  to 
be  right  and  good."  ^ 

Nobly  Christopher  Saur  fulfilled  these  promises.  He 
pubHshed  the  second  and  third  editions  of  the  German- 
town  Bible  and  the  profits  from  the  third  edition  being 
more  than  he  expected,  he  printed  the  "  Geistliches 
Magazin,"  which  he  distributed  free  to  those  who  might 
be  benefited  by  it.      The  contents  were  from  his  own 

1  Brumbaugh,  p.  397. 

50 


The  Separatists 

pen  or  that  of  Alexander  Mack,  Jr.,  or  were  translations 
of  devotional  works  such  as  the  English  non-juror 
Law's  "Serious  Call."  This  was  the  earliest  religious 
magazine  in  Pennsylvania.  He  followed  his  father's 
example  in  writing  timely  articles  on  moral  and  religious 
questions  of  the  day  ; — thus,  he  opposed  the  partaking 
of  the  Germans  in  the  slave-trade.  "  This  godless 
traffic  could  find,"  he  says,  "up  to  the  present  no  safe 
footing  in  Pennsylvania  owing  to  the  abhorrence  the 
Germans  still  have  for  it";  ^  and  he  warns  them  against 
decHning  from  the  position  held  from  the  time  of 
Pastorius'  protest.  When  the  Germans  founded  the 
Academy  in  Germantown,  the  younger  Saur  was  one  of 
the  trustees,  giving  a  subscription  of  ;^20  for  himself 
and  £^o  as  a  memorial  of  his  father.  This  form  of 
memorial  shows  that  the  opposition  of  the  elder  Saur 
to  the  German  Charity  Schools  project  was  not  to  edu- 
cation in  itself,  but  to  the  ecclesiastical  and  political 
plans  back  of  that  apparently  praiseworthy  and  inno- 
cent project. 

Christopher  Saur's  later  years  and  the  close  of  his 
life  amid  exile,  poverty  and  obloquy,  belong  to  the 
story  of  German  religious  life  in  the  Revolutionaiy 
period. 

It  is  with  mingled  feelings  of  regret  and  relief  that 
one  sees  the  end  of  the  Separatist  period ; — regret 
for  the  picturesque,  the  mystical,  the  pious  folk  who 
are  no  longer  the  chief  objects  of  our  study  ;  rehef 
that  we    may    leave    these  scores  of   warring  sects,   of 

^  Berichte,  February  15th,  1761,  quoted  by  Brumbaugh. 

SI 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

ignorant  and  narrow-minded  disputants,  of  pathetic  or 
wrong-headed  saints  and  solitaries.  Yet  the  story  of 
the  Separatists  shows  us  people  who  with  all  their  faults 
and  mistakes  knew  how  to  work  and  suffer  and,  if 
need  be,  accept  exile  or  death  rather  than  surrender  a 
jot  of  what  they  believed  to  be  the  truth  of  God. 

Note. —  The  authorities  on  this  part  of  the  history  are  as  before, 
Goebel's  "  Christliches  Leben,"  Seidensticker' s  admirable  publications: 
"  Bilder  aus  der  deutsch-pennsylvanischenGeschichte  "  (New  York,  1885), 
and  **Geschichte  der  deutschen  Gesellschaft "  (Philadelphia,  1876), 
Pennypacker's  "  Historical  and  Biographical  Sketches"  (Philadelphia, 
1883),  and  ''Settlement  of  Germantown,"  (Philadelphia,  1889).  The 
Mennonite  "Christian  Confession  of  Faith  "  and  the  hymn-book  "  Aus- 
bund ;  das  ist  etliche  Schone  Christliche  Lieder,"  repay  examination. 
For  the  Wissahickon  community  Sachse's  "Pietists  of  Provincial  Pennsyl- 
vania" (Philadelphia,  1895)  may  be  used,  corrected  by  Seidensticker's 
"Bilder."  There  is  a  scholarly  monograph  on  the  Labadist  Colony  in 
Maryland  in  the  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  Vol.  XVII,  pp.  271 — 
317.  Brumbaugh's  "  History  of  the  German  Baptist  Brethren,"  (Mount 
Morris,  1899),  gives  the  best  account  of  the  Bunkers  ;  Sachse's  "  Sectarians 
of  Pennsylvania"  (Philadelphia,  i899-I9C«d)  contains  the  result  of  indus- 
trious if  indiscriminating  collection.  Sluyter  and  Bankers'  journal  has 
been  published  in  translation  by  the  Long  Island  Historical  Society, 
(Memoirs,  Vol.  I.).  The  Bunker  hymn-book,  the  "  Kleine  Baxddische 
Harfenspiel,"  the  Ephrata  "  Weyrauchs  Hiigel "  and  the  "  Chronicon 
Ephratense,"  translated  by  J.  Max  Hark  (Lancaster,  1889),  should  be 
examined.  Redmond  Conyngham's  MS.  history  of  the  Mennonites 
is  printed  in  Hazard's  Register  of  Pennsylvania,  Vol.  VII,  p.  129.  For 
the  two  Christopher  Saurs,  authorities  are  Brumbaugh's  "Brethren," 
Seidensticker'  s  ' '  Bilder ' '  and  ' '  First  Century  of  German  Printing  in 
America"  (Philadelphia,  1893)  and  Sachse's  "Sectarians" — valuable 
in  the  order  named.  An  examination  of  some  imprints  of  the  German- 
town  press  is  interesting  and  instructive. 


52 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    CHURCH    PEOPLE 

The  decade  of  1730-40  is  sometimes  distinguished  as 
that  of  the  emigration  of  the  church  people  ;  that  is,  the 
members  of  the  two  oldest  German  Protestant  organiza- 
tions, the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  bodies.^  But  it  is  a 
purely  arbitrary  date,  selected  more  because  it  embraces 
a  decade  than  because  of  any  decided  change  in  the 
character  of  the  emigration  at  that  particular  time. 

There  had  been  a  few  ''church  people"  mingled  with 
the  Separatists  and  the  ''sects,"  ever  since  the  Falkner 
brothers  were  ordained  to  the  Lutheran  ministry  from 
the  ranks  of  the  Wissahickon  Hermits,  and  Peter  Miller 
was  sent  to  Conestoga  to  save  the  litde  Reformed 
congregation  there.  But  from  this  fourth  decade  of  the 
eighteenth  century  onward  the  sects  outside  of  the 
"great  church"  (as  they  frequently  designated  the  two 
churches  taken  together)  and  the  individual  Separatists 
no  longer  composed  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
immigrants. 

The  two  churches  in  their  German  home  had  been  so 
like  in  doctrine,  polity  and  customs  of  worship  that  a 
member  of  one  could  scarcely  tell  what  were  the  dis- 
tinctive points  of  his  organization  in  respect  to  the  other. 
In    earlier    times,    it    is    true,    there    had    been    much 

^  See  Pennsylvania  :     A  primer  ;  Barr  Ferree,  (New  York,  1904). 

53 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

bitterness  between  them,  and  the  Reformed — ahvays  the 
stronger  from  its  cradle  in  Zwingli's  home,  Switzerland, 
along  the  whole  course  of  the  Rhine — had  persecuted 
the  weaker  Lutheran  Church.  But  subsequently,  with 
the  extinction  of  the  Protestant  line  in  the  Pfalz  and  the 
accession  of  the  Catholic  princes  of  the  Neuburg  line,  all 
Protestants  were  so  harried  and  distressed  that  mutual 
suffering  drew  the  warring  churches  together.  One  in- 
fluenced the  other.  The  Lutheranism  of  the  Rhine 
country  was  not  so  churchly  as  that  of  Luther's  father- 
land, Saxony  ;  the  denomination  itself  had  not  a  separate 
existence,  it  was  counted  and  subsidized  under  the  name 
of  the  Reformed.  It  possessed  two  universities,  Giessen 
and  Strasburg,  the  latter  city  being  also  the  capital  of  a 
countiy  of  which  the  Lutheran  was  the  national  church. 
Wiirtemberg,  too,  was  a  Lutheran  land.  But  excluding 
these  tiny  countries,  the  Rhenish  followers  of  the  Saxon 
reformer  were  a  feeble  folk. 

The  Reformed  or  Calvinistic  church,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  on  its  native  heath  in  the  Rhine  countries.  The 
people  of  the  Palatinate  ( in  spite  of  the  Catholicism  of 
their  later  princes),  the  principalities  of  Zweibrucken, 
Nassau,  Baden,  Hesse,  were  all  Reformed,  not  to  mention 
the  powerful  influence  of  their  Calvinistic  neighbors  of 
German  Switzerland  and  of  Holland.  The  greater  part 
of  the  Waldenses,  scattered  by  persecution  along  the 
whole  course  of  the  Rhine,  had  formally  entered  the 
Reformed  church  as  early  as  1532;  the  Revocation  of 
the  Edict  filled  all  Germany  after  1685  with  the  Hugue- 
not refugees — there  were,  it  is  estimated,  one  hundred 

54 


The   Church   People 

thousand  of  them  who  fled  to  this  nearest  of  Protestant 
lands  and  the  majority  of  them  settled  in  the  Rhineland. 
The  Reformed  church  had  itself  borne  a  persecution 
little  less  severe  during  the  devastation  of  the  Palatinate 
under  Louis  XIV  and  under  its  own  Jesuit-ridden 
princes  ;  their  churches  taken  from  them,  their  pastors 
and  school-teachers  unpaid  in  an  effort  to  starve  them 
into  submission,  the  dragonnades,  which  had  proved  so 
effectual  in  France,  used  also  here.  Before  this  cross 
was  removed,  one-fourth  of  the  population  emigrated, 
some  to  other  parts  of  Germany,  some  to  America. 
The  church  under  its  Catholic  rulers  was  not  only 
oppressed  but  corrupted  ;  in  the  Reformed  consistory 
which  managed  church  affairs,  simony  was  notorious  and 
unashamed.  Pietism  was  to  this  enfeebled  and  harassed 
church  as  great  a  blessing  as  to  the  Lutheran  body  under 
one  of  whose  clergy  it  took  its  rise.  But  there  was  this 
difference  ;  that,  while  the  Pietists  among  the  Lutherans 
were  at  first  a  despised  and  persecuted  sect,  in  the 
Reformed  body  they  composed  the  whole  church. 
Labadie,  in  his  work  of  reviving  the  church,  had  an 
anticipator  in  Untereyck  of  Bremen.  When  the  little 
circles  for  prayer  and  Bible  study  were  formed,  the 
Calvinistic  Synods  approved  of  them,  and  only  ordered 
that  pastors  give  the  movement  direction  and  oversight. 
Such  was  the  history  and  such  the  character  of  the 
''church  people"  who  began  to  flee  to  America  in  the 
first  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  who  by  the  mid- 
dle of  that  century  composed  the  majority  of  its  German 
immigrants.     The   Lutherans  among  them  did  not  fol- 

55 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

low  the  stricter  liturgical  traditions  of  their  own  church  ; 
the  Reformed  ones  preferred  free  prayer  and  a  simple 
worship.  All  were  strongly  pietistic  in  their  leanings,  for 
in  this  school  of  thought  w^ere  found  most  of  the  earnest 
and  devout  souls  of  the  state  churches  ;  those  Palatines 
to  whom  their  religion  was  a  mere  external  formality, 
could  easily  escape  persecution  by  conforming  to  the 
Catholic  creed  of  their  princes.  They  edified  themselves 
from  the  writings  of  Arndt,  the  prayer-book  of  Conrad 
Mel,  Lobwasser's  version  of  Marot's  Huguenot  psalms, 
the  hymns  of  the  great  Lutheran  writers  and  of  Neander 
and  Tersteegen.  Their  zeal  was  made  more  ardent  by 
the  persecution  they  endured  from  the  formalists  of  their 
own  churches,  from^  Catholic  rulers,  or  from  hyper- 
orthodox  opponents  of  Pietism  and  ''enthusiasm,"  and 
that  zeal  was  doubtless  increased  by  the  presence  among 
them  of  descendants  of  the  exiled  Waldenses  and  of 
many  Huguenots  who  had,  in  their  own  persons,  borne 
dragonnades,  plundering,  exile,  imprisonment  and  the 
galleys  rather  than  give  up  their  faith.  They  were 
narrow  minded,  our  early  German  fathers, — ignorant, 
unaccustomed  to  participation  in  the  government  of 
either  church  or  state  ;  but  those  who  made  up  their 
minds  to  leave  their  ''dear  German-land"  ^  stood  for  the 
more  energetic  and  forceful  elements,  and  so,  as  in  the 
New  England  emigration,  "  God  sifted  a  whole  nation 
that  he  might  send  choice  grain  over  into  this  wilderness."^ 

^  Pastorius'  ode  in  the  Germantown  records,  translated  by  Whittier. 
2  "  Delivered  in  a  sermon  preached  at  Boston  in  New  England,  April 
29th,  1668,"  by  the  Rev.  Wm.  Stoughton. 

56 


The  Church   People 

Both  the  Lutheran  and  Reformed  churches,  though 
early  planted  on  these  shores,  fell  into  neglect,  and  in 
the  lack  of  clergy  were  obliged  to  depend  for  the  shep- 
herding of  their  earliest  congregations  upon  pious  and 
zealous  laymen.  Often  the  first  movement  toward 
gathering  a  church  was  given  by  the  activity  of  a  sec- 
tarian leader  in  the  neighborhood.  Thus  Tempelman,  the 
Calvinistic  school-master  who  founded  a  congregation  in 
Conestoga,  was  impelled  thereto  by  Beissel's  efforts  in 
the  same  region.  The  earliest  emigration  not  impelled 
by  religious  persecution,  the  great  exodus  of  Queen 
Anne's  time,  was  chiefly  of  the  Reformed  people,  and 
those  among  these  hapless  refugees  who  settled  in  New 
York  State,  coming  under  the  care  of  the  Dutch 
Reformed  church  there,  finally  were  absorbed  in  it. 
Two  German  missionaries,  Haeger  and  Oehl,  who  had 
received  Episcopal  ordination  in  London,  tried  to  detach 
the  Germans  from  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  but  without 
success.  De  Graffenried's  colony  at  New  Berne  had  a 
Reformed  clergyman  for  chaplain  ;  but  the  church  he 
founded  was  absorbed  by  the  Presbyterians.  At  the 
same  date  there  came  to  Pennsylvania  a  Swiss  Reformed 
minister,  the  Rev.  Samuel  Guldin,  who  having  fallen 
under  the  suspicion  of  being  a  Pietist,  had  been  inter- 
dicted from  preaching  in  Berne  and  banished  to  a 
country  parish.  He  then  left  Switzerland,  came  to 
Germantown  and  preached  there  and  in  the  surrounding 
country  during  all  the  rest  of  his  long  life,  confining 
himself,  however,  to  this  evangelistic  work  and  not 
attempting  to  organize  any  churches. 

57 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

The  org-anization  of  new  churches  fell  to  the  hands  of 
a  pious  school-master,  John  PhiHp  Boehm,  the  son  of  a 
Reformed  clergyman  of  Hesse.  Coming  to  Pennsylvania 
in  1720,  he  began  services  as  a  lay  *' reader,"  was 
besought  with  tears  by  the  elder,  Heniy  Antes,  to 
minister  to  their  congregation,  and  although  at  first 
refusing  because  he  had  not  been  ordained,  he  finally 
consented,  ''protesting  before  God  that  he  could  not 
justify  his  refusal  of  so  necessary  a  work."  About  the 
same  time  and  in  the  same  way  Conrad  Tempelman,  a 
pious  layman,  a  tailor  by  trade,  founded  some  congrega- 
tions near  Boehm's  mission.  Subsequently  Boehm  was 
ordained  (by  the  Dutch  Reformed),  after  some  friction 
with  a  young  and  over-zealous  minister,  George  Michael 
Weiss,  who,  although  he  was  pronounced  by  Jedidiah 
Andrews  "a  bright  young  man  and  a  fine  scholar," 
seems  to  have  lacked  discretion  and  brotherly  charity  in 
dealing  with  the  conditions  of  a  new  country  and  the 
limitations  of  his  earnest,  if  irregular,  fellow-laborer. 
Presently  the  Rev.  John  Peter  Miller,  scholarly,  pious 
and  regularly  ordained  by  the  presbyteiy  of  Philadelphia, 
was  sent  to  minister  at  Conestoga.  We  have  seen  how 
this  ended — in  Beissel's  conversion  of  Miller  and  the 
entry  of  "Brother  Jaebez"  into  the  Ephrata  cloister. 
Then  Henry  Antes,  ''  the  pious  Reformed  elder  of 
Falkner's  Swamp,"  tried  to  start  a  Union  movement 
which  should  embrace  all  religious  people,  but  this  ended 
in  taking  Antes  into  the  Moravian  body.  So  that  all 
was  confusion,  feebleness  and  discouragement  among  the 
few  Reformed  in  the  province  of  Pennsylvania,  and  they 

58 


The   Church   People 

were  more  numerous  there  than  in  any  other  American 
province. 

Their  petitions  to  Europe  for  ministers  and  particularly 
for  a  superintendent  had  been  unheeded.  At  length  the 
Fathers  in  Holland  procured  a  young  Swiss-German, 
Michael  Schlatter,  who  was  willing  to  go  to  Pennsylvania 
and  endeavor  to  bring  order  out  of  confusion.  He  was 
young,  energetic,  fond  of  travel,  of  good  family  and 
education.  Before  completing  his  education  at  St.  Gall 
he  had  attended  the  Dutch  and  German  universities, 
and  appeared  just  the  man  for  the  place.  Schlatter 
started  for  America  in  June,  1746,  meeting  on  the  way 
with  pirates  and  perils  of  shipwreck.  He  had  expected 
not  to  take  a  congregation,  but  the  religious  destitution 
among  the  Reformed  so  appealed  to  him  that  he  accepted 
the  pastorate  of  the  Philadelphia  and  Germantown 
charges,  serving  without  salary  for  the  first  year — "in 
order,"  he  says,  ''that  by  deeds  I  might  convince  them 
that  I  did  not  serve  them  merely  for  the  sake  of  my 
bread."  With  immense  energy  and  devotion  he  set 
about  the  work  of  visiting  the  congregations,  organizing 
them  properly,  ordaining  unordained  laborers  like 
Tempelman,  procuring  new  ministers  from  Europe, 
straightening  out  the  involved  accounts  of  several 
benevolent  funds  and  finally  organizing  a  general  body, 
the  Coetus  or  Synod.  In  his  journeys  he  went  not  only 
through  and  through  Pennsylvania  but  to  Maryland, 
Virginia,  and  frequently  to  New  York  City,  also  regularly 
ministering  to  congregations  in  New  Jersey.  His  course 
was  not  unvexed  by  quarrels,  and  even  a  trial  before  a 

59 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

civil  court  to  determine  the  ownership  of  a  church  build- 
ing ;  there  were  many  differences  in  the  infant  coetus 
over  doctrinal  points,  the  moral  and  intellectual  character- 
istics of  ministers,  etc.,  but  the  later  meetings  became 
more  harmonious. 

In  175 1  Schlatter  went  over  to  Europe  and  represented 
the  cause  of  the  poor  and  struggling  Reformed  Church 
of  Pennsylvania  to  the  rich  Calvinists  of  Holland  ;  he 
also  went  to  Switzerland  and  the  Palatinate  in  search  of 
ministerial  candidates  who  might  go  to  Pennsylvania,  but 
found  none  who  were  willing.  He  then  addressed  him- 
self to  the  university  of  Herborn  (in  reality  only  a  high 
school  with  a  small  but  learned  and  pious  faculty)  which 
sent  six  young  men  back  with  Schlatter  to  provide  the 
German  Reformed  with  clerical  ministrations.  Herborn 
was  strongly  pietistic  in  its  spirit — "the  churchly  Pietism 
of  the  Reformed  of  Germany."  (Good:  German  Re- 
formed Church  in  U.  S.  p.  404.)  Schlatter  had  scarcely 
reached  America  with  his  six  young  ministers,  when  he 
fell  into  trouble  with  his  fellow  clergymen  ;  a  rival  coetus 
was  set  up  under  the  presidency  of  Weiss,  Boehm's 
former  opponent,  and  Schlatter  again  returned  to  Europe. 
There  he  resigned  his  home-missionary  superintendency 
under  the  Holland  deputies  and  was  probably  very  glad 
to  be  employed  by  a  new  society — organized  in  London 
by  the  tireless  efforts  of  the  Rev.  David  Thomson,  an 
English  Presbyterian  pastor  at  Amsterdam — for  "the 
propagation  of  the  knowledge  of  God  among  the  Ger- 
mans." About  the  same  time  that  Schlatter  was  in 
London,  there  came  thither  the  Rev.  Wm.  Smith,  provost 

60 


The   Church   People 

of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  an  energetic  and 
enthusiastic  man  who  sometimes  let  his  zeal  outrun  his 
discretion.  In  a  "  Brief  History  of  the  Charitable 
Scheme  for  the  ReHef  and  Instruction  of  Poor  Germans,"  ^ 
which  he  published  on  Franklin's  press  the  year  after  his 
arrival,  Mr.  Smith  showed  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the 
schools  which  had  previously  been  established  in  connec- 
tion with  the  German  churches,  nor  of  the  condition  of 
the  frontier  Germans,  who  were  neither  '*  exposed  an 
easy  prey  to  the  total  ignorance  of  their  Savage  Neigh- 
bors on  the  one  Hand,  or  the  Corruptions  of  our 
Jesuitical  Enemies  on  whom  they  border,  on  the  other 
hand."^  The  notion  that  the  Germans  might  become 
Indians  because  they  were  exposed  to  the  incursions  and 
alarums  of  Indian  war  parties,  or  would  likely  conspire 
with  the  French  to  escape  whose  devastations  most  of 
them  had  come,  would  have  been  ridiculous  had  not  the 
consequences  of  the  misapprehension  been  so  serious, 
both  for  Schlatter  and  the  schools. 

A  powerful  opponent,  too,  was  raised  up  against  them 
in  the  person  of  old  Christopher  Saur,  who  thundered 
against  the  project  in  his  newspaper  as  well  as  in  private 
letters,  and  although  the  American  trustees  did  their  best 
to  counteract  it,  even  using  some  of  their  funds  to  start 
an  opposition  press  and  paper,  Saur's  vast  influence  with 
the  ''sect  people  " — especially  the  Dunkers — could  not 

1  "  A  Brief  History  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Charitable  Scheme 
carrying  on  by  a  Society  of  Noblemen  and  Gentlemen  in  London  for  the 
Relief  and  Instruction  of  Poor  Germans,"  etc.  Philadelphia,  Franklin 
and  Hall,  1755. 

2  p.  6,  Brief  History. 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

be  counteracted.  Saur  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  an 
endeavor  to  influence  the  peace  sects  among  the  Germans 
to  elect  to  the  Assembly  men  who  would  vote  money  for 
a  militia,  frontier  forts  and  other  defences  against  the 
Indians,  with  whom  the  province,  after  the  defeat  of 
Braddock,  was  just  beginning  to  have  its  first  troubles. 
To  be  sure,  the  Germans  on  the  frontier,  among  whom 
these  schools  would  chiefly  be  established,  were  by  no 
means  non-resistants,  but  fought  doughtily  under  the 
leadership  of  Conrad  Weiser  for  the  defence  of  their  little 
log-huts  and  clearings.  Saur,  however,  was  able  to 
prejudice  many  against  the  plan,  and  in  a  few  years  the 
zeal  of  the  English  contributors  declined,  money  ceased 
to  come  in  and  the  Charit)^  School  project  fell  into  ruin. 
Schlatter,  during  the  declining  years  of  the  project, 
sought  and  obtained  a  chaplaincy  in  the  Royal  American 
Regiment  recruited  from  among  the  Pennsylvania  Ger- 
mans by  Col.  Henry  Bouquet,  and  in  his  military 
capacity  accompanied  the  regiment  to  the  capture  of 
Louisburg ;  subsequently  he  went  with  the  gallant 
Bouquet  to  Pittsburg  in  1764. 

At  the  close  of  his  army  life,  Schlatter  retired  to  a 
little  farm  in  the  vicinity  of  Philadelphia,  where  he  died 
in  1790.  After  his  dismissal  to  take  charge  of  the  un- 
lucky Charity-School  project,  he  never  resumed  the  con- 
nection with  the  coetus  which  he  had  founded,  and  the 
German  Reformed  church,  in  Pennsylvania  where  it  was 
strongest  and  proportionately  in  the  more  southern 
colonies  of  Maryland  and  Virginia,  suffered  for  want  of 
the  energetic  and  capable  supervision  which  he  had  at 

62 


The   Church   People 

one  time  given  it.  In  New  York,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
Germans  united  with  the  Dutch  Reformed,  while  in  the 
middle  and  southern  provinces,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
Reformed  church  at  New  Berne,  they  were  largely  taken 
up  into  the  Presbyterian  fold,  or,  where  there  were  Union 
churches,  they  threw  in  their  lot  with  their  better- 
shepherded  Lutheran  brethren. 

The  Lutherans  had  been  in  as  bad  a  state  as  the  Re- 
formed ever  were  ;  for  years  nearly  all  the  work  among 
them  in  Pennsylvania  was  done  by  one  man,  John  Caspar 
Stoever.  The  Kocherthal  colony,  forerunners  of  the 
large  emigration  under  Queen  Anne's  patronage,  was 
brought  over  to  the  province  of  New  York  under  the 
leadership  of  a  Lutheran  pastor,  Joshua  von  Kocherthal. 
During  the  first  winter  in  the  new  land  dissensions  broke 
out  among  them  ;  some  of  the  colony  were  accused  by 
others  of  being  Pietists,  and,  to  his  great  bewilderment, 
the  English  Governor  was  requested  to  withdraw  rations 
from  the  misbelievers.  He,  not  knowing  what  a  Pietist 
was,  sent  a  commission  to  inquire  into  the  matter.  This 
and  other  things  discouraged  Kocherthal  who  returned 
to  England  for  assistance.  There  he  encountered  the 
large  body  of  Palatine  refugees  encamped  near  London, 
and  came  back  on  the  same  ship  with  three  thousand  of 
them.  These  refugees  were  finally  settled  along  the 
Hudson,  at  Rhinebeck,  New  Paltz  and  other  localities, 
and  Kocherthal  ministered  among  them  until  his  death 
in  1 7 19. 

But  some  years  before  the  coming  of  Kocherthal's 
colony   or    that  of   Queen  Anne's    poor  Palatines,   the 

6j 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

church  in  New  York  City  had  secured  the  services  of 
the  Rev.  Justus  Falkner,  who  with  his  brother  Daniel 
had  left  the  Hermit  community  of  the  Wissahickon  and 
gone  into  the  Lutheran  ministiy.  Justus  Falkner  was 
a  devout  and  devoted  clergyman.  For  twenty  years 
he  ministered  not  only  to  the  city  congregation  but  in 
the  summer  went  as  far  as  Albany,  visiting  the  scattered 
Lutherans,  preaching  and  administering  the  sacraments. 
Frequently  after  a  baptismal  record,  he  would  add  a 
short  prayer  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the  child,  as  for 
instance,  *'  Lord  !  Lord,  let  this  child  be  and  remain 
engrossed  upon  the  book  of  life  through  Jesus  Christ. 
Amen."  **  Bless,  O  Lord,  this  child  also  with  everlast- 
ing happiness  through  Jesus  Christ.  Amen."  On  the 
baptism  of  a  negro  child,  "  Lord,  merciful  God,  who 
lookest  not  upon  the  person,  but  from  whom  different 
creatures  that  fear  thee  and  do  right  find  favor,  let  this 
child  be  clothed  in  the  white  robe  of  innocence  and 
righteousness  and  so  remain  through  the  grace  of 
Christ,  the  savior  of  all  mankind.  Amen."  And  when 
a  Carolina  Indian  slave  was  baptized  by  the  name  of 
Thomas  Christian,  Falkner  prayed,  *' That  the  Lord 
would  henceforth  cause  this  unbelieving  Thomas  to 
become  a  believing  Christian^  Falkner's  useful  and 
pious  life  ended  in  1723;  his  successor,  Berkenmeyer, 
who  married  a  daughter  of  Pastor  Kocherthal,  also 
ministered  in  Albany  and  up  and  down  the  Hudson. 
Later  the  colonists  at  Schoharie  had  a  minister  of  their 
own,  Sommer,  who  served  the  Germans,  by  this  time 
spread  along  the  Mohawk,  **  making  it  for  fifty  miles  a 

64 


The   Church   People 

German  stream."  He  had  preaching  places  at  Palatine 
Bridge,  Stone  Arabia  and  other  settlements  of  that 
region,  serving  with  unwearied  diligence  and  a  simple 
heroism  which  has  won  the  admiration  of  the  secular 
and  unsympathetic  historian  Kapp. 

In    the    south    there  were  German  congregations  at 
many  of   the  early  settlements  such  as  Frederica  and 
Purysburg,  but  it  is  often  impossible  to  decide  whether 
they  were  Lutheran  or  Reformed — a  fact  which  has  been 
a    greater    grief  to  denominational    historians    than  to 
anyone  else.       Probably  the  poor    and    alien    colonists 
were  too  glad  to  secure  occasional  services  in  their  native 
tongue  to  be  very  critical  as  to  the  ecclesiastical  connec- 
tion of  their  preacher.     In  South  Carolina  the  Germans 
had  been  settled  in  the  State  for  more  than  sixty  years 
before  the  first  German  minister,   the  Rev.  John  Ulrich 
Geissendanner,   came  to  the  Orangeburg  district.      He 
died  shortly  after  his  arrival  and  his  successor, — who  was 
his  namesake  and  nephew, — presently  secured  the  Epis- 
copal   ordination,    and    both  pastor    and    congregation 
passed  into  that  church.     This  was  the  history  of  many 
congregations  in  South  Carolina.     At  Saxe  Gotha  the 
first  Reformed  minister  there  found  a  weird  sect  called 
the  Weberites,  which  had  arisen  out  of  prayer  meetings 
held  by  a  few  ignorant  Swiss  people.      For  a  time  they 
read  the  Scripture,  prayed  and  edified  each  other  as  well 
as  they  could,  but  presently  the  leader,  Jacob  Weber, 
began  to  have  revelations  to  the  effect  that  he  was  a 
divine  incarnation  and  that  a  certain  neighbor  was  Satan, 
who  must  be  destroyed ;   so  Weber  and  others  of  the 
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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

sect  smothered  their  supposed  devil  to  death  under  a 
feather  bed.  For  this  crime  Weber  was  executed,  leav- 
ing a  pathetic  confession  which  shows  him  to  have  been 
a  sincere  but  deluded  man — probably  suffering  from 
religious  insanity.  The  church  at  Charleston  was  almost 
the  only  flourishing  one  in  South  Carolina  and  from 
there  some  missionary  work  was  done  among  the  desti- 
tute people  further  up  the  State;  after  the  German 
settlement  in  the  Orangeburg  and  neighboring  districts 
increased,  several  pastors  came  thither  from  the  Charles- 
ton church.  This  church,  St.  John's  by  name,  had  its 
own  troubles,  although  during  the  pastorate  of  Martin 
they  were  wealthy  and  benevolent  enough  to  form  a 
"German  Society"  for  the  care  and  help  of  poor 
emigrants.  At  one  time  they  procured  a  student  to 
serve  as  vicar  to  their  feeble  minister — a  young  man 
who  arrived  without  his  trunk,  which  he  said  had  been 
stolen  from  him  in  Holland.  A  benevolent  elder  paid 
his  passage  and  bought  him  clothes,  the  old  minister 
examined,  ordained  and  installed  him,  also  '*  marrying 
him,  on  his  sickbed,  to  one  of  his  own  daughters  besides 
giving  him  the  necessary  books  and  skeletons  of  sermons. " 
More  than  this  seems  to  have  been  ** necessary"  to 
make  a  creditable  minister  out  of  the  young  man,  for 
presently  we  find  Muhlenberg — who  had  been  called  in 
as  usual  when  any  Lutheran  church  anywhere  was  in 
trouble — saying,  '*  when  a  minister  makes  himself  familiar 
with  drunkards,  flourishes  with  his  sword  at  night  along 
the  streets,  throws  stones  at  windows,  etc.,  and  his  wife 
frequents   the  theater  at  night,    leads   in   the  dance  at 

66 


The   Church   People 

weddings,  etc.,  we  can  easily  imagine  what  impression 
this  must  make."  They  finally  recalled  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Martin,  a  self-taught  man,  ordained  by  the  Ebenezer 
pastors,  but  who  served  them  faithfully  until  his  patriotism 
caused  him  to  be  exiled  from  the  city  by  the  British 
troops  in  the  Revolution. 

The  story  of  Lutherans  in  North  Carolina  is  much 
more  encouraging  than  the  forlorn  tale  of  the  southern 
province  ;  and  this  is  largely  because  the  immigration 
there  was  from  Pennsylvania  and  the  churches  of  various 
denominations  were  generally  supported  from  the  north. 
One  group  of  churches  in  Western  North  Carolina, 
however,  sought  and  obtained  help  from  Germany.  It 
is  an  unusual  story ;  two  little  churches  of  the  Lutheran 
faith  had  been  organized:  St.  John's  in  Mecklenburg 
County,  and  Zion's,  commonly  known  as  "Organ 
Church"  because  it  alone  of  all  its  sister  churches 
possessed  such  an  instrument.  Failing  in  their  applica- 
tion to  Pennsylvania  for  ministers,  they  sent  two  elders 
to  Europe  to  apply  to  the  Lutheran  consistory  of 
Hannover  for  help,  and  received  not  only  grants  of 
money,  but  the  services  of  two  faithful  missionaries, 
Adolph  Nussman,  a  very  learned  and  devoted  man,  a 
converted  Franciscan  monk,  and  Gottfried  Arndt,  at  first 
a  school-teacher  but  afterwards  ordained.  These  two, 
undeterred  by  the  disturbances  of  the  Revolution  which 
cut  off  temporarily  their  German  subventions,  labored 
for  fifteen  years  all  through  western  North  Carolina,  and 
planted  churches  in  the  whole  region  west  of  the  Catawba 
river. 

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Except  ''old  Guldi,"  who  only  preached  occasionally, 
there  was  not  a  single  ordained  minister  of  either  church 
in  Pennsylvania  until  1717.  It  was  the  work  of  pastors 
Boehm  and  Stoever  a  little  later  on  that  saved  the 
Reformed  and  Lutheran  churches.^  John  Caspar 
Stoever  was  the  son  of  a  Lutheran  pastor  of  the  same 
name  from  Strasburg,  who,  having  ministered  for  years 
to  a  struggling  congregation  at  Germanna,  Governor 
Spotswood's  village  in  Virginia,  went  abroad  to  procure 
help  for  them,  died  and  was  buried  at  sea  on  his  return 
voyage.  The  son  was  not  ordained — there  being  no  one 
to  perform  it  in  America  at  that  time — but  he  did  an 
almost  incredible  amount  of  work  among  the  Lutherans 
of  Pennsylvania,  itinerating  for  years  through  the  rural 
parts  of  the  province  from  his  home  in  New  Hanover ; 
later  he  removed  to  Lancaster,  whence  he  went  to  the 
verge  of  settlement  beyond  the  Susquehanna,  founding 
churches  and  ministering  at  the  Codorus  and  Conewago 
settlements,  not  yet  called  *'York"  and  "Hanover." 
Later  he  removed  to  Quitapohilla,  *'the  Snake's  Hole" — 
now  Lebanon — still  following  the  frontier  and  the  rude, 
hardy  German  pioneers.  At  Lebanon,  it  is  said,  pastor 
Stoever  used  to  carry  his  gun  with  him  on  all  his 
journeys,  and  even  into  the  pulpit,  yet  he  went  to  his 
York  congregation  on  the  other  side  of  the  Susquehanna 
regularly  once  a  month  for  ten  years.  About  this  time 
he  succeeded  in  obtaining  ordination.  He  had  his  faults ; 
perhaps  he  was,  as  Muhlenberg  told  the  Halle  fathers, 
hot-headed    and    censorious.      He   was   not  inclined   to 

^  Schmauk,   Lutheran  Church  in  Pennsylvania,  p.  221. 

68 


The   Church   People 

Pietism  and  when  Muhlenberg,  the  new  superintendent, 
came  fresh  and  zealous  from  Halle,  the  old  frontiersman- 
preacher  probably  received  him  with  little  courtesy  and 
gratitude  ;  but  the  Halle  Reports  do  scant  justice  to  his 
heroic  work.  •'  He  endured  more  hardships  with  much 
more  equanimity  than  Muhlenberg  ;  the  material  side  of 
things  doubtless  had  a  large  degree  of  interest  and  charm 
for  him  ;  he  insisted  on  orthodoxy  strenuously  and  even 
violently  and  he  lacked  the  deeper  spiritual  sense,  the 
inner  spring  of  piety  which  Muhlenberg  possessed." 
But  with  all,  Stoever  did  a  great,  noble,  and  unap- 
preciated work. 

He  was  involved  in  the  distressing  and  disgraceful 
affair  known  as  the  Tulpehocken  Confusion,  when  the 
two  parties  of  Lutherans  and  the  Moravians  struggled 
for  years  about  the  church  of  Tulpehocken.  In  the 
course  of  this  bitter  dispute,  Zinzendorf  deposed  Stoever 
from  the  ministry.  A  number  of  Germans  of  prominence 
were  mixed  up  with  this  affair,  which  served  to  give  it 
undesirable  publicity.  It  began  in  the  colony  so 
heroically  founded  by  emigrants  from  Schoharie,  fleeing 
from  what  they  thought  the  oppressions  of  the  New  York 
government.  At  first  they  were  beautifully  harmonious 
in  their  new  Pennsylvania  home ;  Conrad  Weiser,  a  man 
of  power  and  intehigence,  ministered  to  them  as  a  Bible- 
reader  and  gave  them  extracts  from  the  works  of  Spener 
and  Francke.  He  it  was,  too,  who  urged  them  to  send 
to  Halle  for  a  regularly-ordained  minister.  During  the 
lengthy  and  eventually  fruitless  negotiations  incident  to 

^  Schmauk,  Lutheran  Church  in  America,  p.  250. 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

this  matter,  Weiser,  who  through  all  his  busy  and 
changeful  life  cherished  a  warm  friendship  for  Peter 
Miller,  the  Reformed  clergyman  at  Conestoga,  was  drawn 
with  him  into  the  Ephrata  cloister.  Miller  said  that 
"Wisdom  drew  them  into  her  net,"  but  as  to  Weiser 
the  snare  was  soon  broken  and  he  escaped,  saying  that 
when  they  began  to  reject  Christ  and  turned  to  the 
writings  of  Dippel  the  mystic  instead  of  those  of  the 
Halle  Pietists,  he  must  give  them  up.  Meanwhile 
Stoever  struggled  violently  against  the  opponents  of  his 
church  and  himself,  though  in  vain  until  Muhlenberg  at 
last  brought  a  minister  who  gave  satisfaction  to  the  dis- 
tracted congregation  at  Tulpehocken. 

Stoever's  relations  with  Muhlenberg  continued 
strained — neither  could  understand  or  appreciate  the 
good  in  the  other — but  in  the  later  years  of  Stoever's 
long  life  they  became  reconciled,  insomuch  that  Stoever 
connected  himself  with  the  ministerium  founded  by 
Muhlenberg.  Stoever's  death  took  place  at  Quitapohilla 
in  his  seventy-fifth  year.  He  was  to  administer  the  rite 
of  confirmation  and,  not  feeling  well  enough  to  go  to  the 
church,  sent  for  the  young  confirmants  to  come  to  his 
house ;  there,  while  in  the  act  of  confirmation,  he  dropped 
dead. 

We  have  frequently  alluded  to  Muhlenberg ; — it 
seems  desirable  to  give  his  biography  at  length,  for  from 
the  time  of  his  landing  in  1742  to  his  death  in  1787  that 
biography  is  the  history  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in 
America.  Heniy  Melchior  Miihlenberg  descended  from 
a  noble  family  of   North   Germany,   impoverished   and 

70 


The   Church   People 

reduced  by  the  wars  of  the  sixteenth  century.  He  was 
a  graduate  of  the  university  of  Gottingen,  and  an  ard- 
ent Pietist.  When  on  a  visit  to  Halle,  Francke  asked 
him  whether  he  would  be  willing  to  accept  a  call  from 
America ;  Muhlenberg  immediately  answered  that  **  if 
such  were  the  will  of  God,  he  would  certainly  go."  And 
go  he  did  in  a  few  months  thereafter,  arriving  at  Charles- 
ton, South  Carolina,  in  the  autumn  of  1742.  Thence  he 
went  to  Ebenezer,  the  settlement  of  the  pious  and  per- 
secuted Salzburgers,  whose  welfare  was  always  near  and 
dear  to  his  heart. 

The  stoiy  of  the  Salzburg  exiles  reads  like  a  romance, 
yet  it  is  the  soberest  of  fact.  After  a  persecution  lasting 
for  two  hundred  years,  with  intervals  whose  peace  was 
purchased  by  submitting  to  external  regulations,  meeting 
in  cellars  and  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth,  the  zeal  of  a 
new  archbishop  finally  drove  them  out.  Twenty  thousand 
Lutherans — giving  up  their  homes,  their  property,  even 
their  children,  who  had  been  taken  from  them  to  be 
brought  up  on  Catholicism — left  their  country  in  the 
depths  of  winter  and  went  out  not  knowing  whither  they 
went.  Yet  the  procession  of  exiles  was  not  only  a  brave 
but  a  triumphant  one;  singing  hymns,  they  marched 
through  Protestant  Germany  everywhere  received  by 
their  fellow-believers  with  prayers  and  tears  and  gifts. 
Many  went  to  Brandenburg,  where  the  Elector  had 
invited  them.  A  band  of  them  passing  through  Augs- 
burg excited  the  Christian  sympathy  of  Pastor  Urlsperger; 
writing  an  account  of  the  emigration  for  some  English 
friends,  the  interest  eHcited  by  it  enabled  Urlsperger  to 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

procure  means  to  carry  fifty  families  to  the  new  colony 
of  Georgia  just  then  founded  by  Oglethorpe.  Space 
fails  to  tell  of  their  piety,  their  hardships,  and  their  grati- 
tude to  God  and  to  godly  friends  for  this  refuge  provided 
them  beyond  the  ocean.  They  settled  at  Ebenezer,  near 
Savannah,  under  the  care  of  two  Lutheran  pastors, 
Boltzius  and  Gronau,  supplied  them  by  the  ever-faithful 
Halle  Institution.  There  the  Salzburgers  lived  and 
labored,  conducting  services  also  among  some  scattered 
Germans  in  their  neighborhood,  and  there  not  only 
Miihlenberg,  but  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefield  had  profit- 
able intercourse  with  them. 

Leaving  the  Salzburgers,  Muhlenberg,  after  tedious 
delays,  arrived  in  Philadelphia,  where  he  found  the 
Lutheran  congregation  sadly  disturbed  by  the  possibly 
well-meant  but  divisive  efforts  of  Zinzendorf  Having 
settled  this  trouble,  Miihlenberg  turned  to  the  country 
congregations.  He  fixed  his  residence  at  Providence, 
(the  Trappe),  where  a  church  building  soon  took  the 
place  of  the  barn  in  which  services  had  been  conducted. 
He  married  the  daughter  of  Conrad  Weiser,  now  Indian 
Interpreter  for  the  province,  and  thus  allied  himself  to 
the  American  pioneers  who  had  preceded  him.  Now 
began  his  visitation  of  the  country  congregations — 
feeble,  scattered  and  distracted  by  the  results  of  Moravian 
evangelistic  zeal ;  presently  he  extended  his  supervision, 
as  did  Schlatter,  to  Maryland  and  Virginia,  and  where, 
along  the  Monocacy  and  the  Shenandoah  Valleys,  the 
tide  of  Pennsylvania-German  emigration,  re-enforced 
from  the  Fatherland,   was  pouring  a  flood.     Like  the 

72 


The  Church   People 

emigration  from  Germany  which  had  peopled  Pennsyl- 
vania, this  was  led  by  the  sects — Dunkers  and  Mennon- 
ites — but  now  the  church  people  were  following  in  their 
wake.  Miahlenberg  paid  several  visits  to  New  York, 
both  to  the  city  and  the  province,  and  also  to  New 
Jersey.  The  feeble  and  scattered  Lutherans  of  the 
Carolinas  claimed  his  attention,  when  after  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century  Pennsylvania-German  emigration 
reached  so  far.  The  eccentric  Hartwig,  the  pioneer 
preacher  of  New  York,  was  a  friend  and  guest  of 
Muhlenberg.  Hartwig  was  once  called  to  the  little  knot 
of  Germans  who,  plundered  and  deserted,  had  been  cast 
on  the  Maine  coast  at  Waldoboro,  but  he  was  unable 
to  accept  and  the  shepherding  of  this  flock  was  left 
largely  to  the  Moravians.  Even  as  far  as  Nova  Scotia, 
the  German  colony  of  Lunenberg  looked  to  Muhlenberg 
for  aid  and,  on  the  advice  of  Schlatter,  called  him  to 
become  their  pastor. 

This  brings  into  notice  the  brotherly  and  broad-minded 
charity  of  his  relations  with  other  bodies  of  Christians. 
He  was  intimate  with  the  Swedish  Lutheran  Wrangel, 
whose  position  in  his  own  communion  was  something 
like  that  of  Muhlenberg  among  the  Germans  ;  he  main- 
tained friendship  with  Michael  Schlatter,  with  the  Pres- 
byterians, such  as  the  two  Tennants,  Gilbert  and  William, 
with  Whitefield — in  short,  with  eveiyone  but  Zinzendoif 
and  the  Moravians.  The  Episcopalians  were  very 
friendly  with  the  learned  and  dignified  Superintendent  of 
the  Lutherans.  Muhlenberg  said  of  them:  "During the 
thirty- two  years  of  my  sojourning  in  America,  time  and 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

again  occasions  were  given  me  to  join  the  Episcopal 
church  and  to  receive  four  or  five  times  more  salary  than 
my  poor  German  fellow-members  of  the  Lutheran  faith 
gave  me;  but  I  preferred  to  preach  in  and  with  my 
people  to  the  Treasures  in  Egypt."  ^ 

He  early  formed  the  ministers  of  his  faith  into  a  Synod, 
which  presently  died,  but  was  resurrected  into  what  is 
the  oldest  Lutheran  body  in  America — the  Ministerium. 
He  began  in  a  humble  way  a  theological  seminary,  tak- 
ing a  few  young  candidates  and  training  them ;  subse- 
quently this  infant  seminary  was  passed  over  to  the  care 
of  Wrangel.  He  formed  a  common  hturgy  from  the 
different  ones  which  were  used,  each  pastor  having 
previously  conducted  services  according  to  his  own  ideas, 
or  used  the  liturgy  of  the  little  principality  from  which 
he  himself  came.  Muhlenberg  furnished  a  model  for  a 
church  constitution — an  important  matter  in  a  denomi- 
nation as  strongly  congregational  in  its  leanings  as  is  the 
Lutheran.  In  short,  there  is  no  part  of  the  country,  no 
province  of  church  government,  in  which  Muhlenberg's 
hand  was  not  busy  or  his  influence  felt.  It  was  the 
superior  good  fortune  of  the  church  he  represented  to 
have  him  continue  his  work  through  the  whole  remainder 
of  the  Colonial  period.  Had  he,  like  Schlatter, 
abandoned  the  work  of  supervision  and  the  connection 
with  his  Synod  just  as  his  work  of  organization  was  well 
under  way,  the  Lutherans  like  the  Reformed  might  have 
decHned  and  decreased  and  been  absorbed  into  other 
bodies.      It    is    a    testimony  alike  to    the    character    of 

1  Quoted  in  Dr.  Mann's  Life  of  Muhlenberg,  p.  455. 

74 


The   Church   People 

Muhlenberg  and  to  the  discernment  of  his  church,  that 
he  is  still  revered  among  Lutherans  of  all  names  and  races 
as  the  ''Patriarch  of  the  Lutheran  Church"  in  America. 

The  last  one  of  the  ''tolerated  confessions"  which 
made  up  the  church  people  of  Germany,  the  Catholic, 
has  been  passed  over  as  so  small  in  the  Colonial  period 
as  to  be  beneath  notice.  Thus  one  authority  says  that 
at  the  opening  of  the  Revolution  there  were  only 
thirteen  hundred  Roman  Catholics  between  Canada  and 
Florida ;  ^  Seidensticker  estimates  the  number  of  German 
Catholics  in  Pennsylvania  at  two  thousand.^  But  in  the 
same  year  that  Muhlenberg  received  his  call  to  America 
the  number  of  German  Catholics  was  so  great  that  Ger- 
man-speaking Jesuits  were  sought  out  and  sent  to  min- 
ister to  them. 

One  of  them,  Father  Schneider,  a  Bavarian,  went  to 
Goshenhoppen,  where,  by  1745,  he  managed  to  get 
built  what  Archbishop  Carroll  calls  "a  noble  church." 
The  land  was  sold  him  in  a  fit  of  pique  against  his  own 
denomination  by  a  Mennonite,  who  rightly  judged  that 
nothing  would  exasperate  his  brethren  more.  So  poor 
was  this  pioneer  priest  that  he  could  not  buy  himself  a 
missal  and  therefore  copied  one  for  his  own  use,  a  volume 
of  more  than  seven  hundred  MS.  pages, — a  monument 
alike  of  his  piety  and  poverty.  He  was  the  pastor  of  the 
German  Catholics  in  Philadelphia  for  many  years,  and 
his  parish  extended  into  Delaware  and  New  Jersey,  mass 
being    celebrated    at   the     Geiger    house    near    Salem. 

^  Rise  of  Religious  Liberty  in  America,  Cobb,  p.  451. 
^  Geschichte  der  deutschen  Gesellschaft,  p.  17. 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

Father  Schneider  seems  to  have  itinerated  from  Goshen- 
hoppen  as  a  center ;  his  first  record  is  of  a  baptism  per- 
formed at  a  house  in  Falkner's  Swamp,  the  infant's  god- 
mother being,  as  he  notes,  a  Lutheran.  His  companion, 
Father  Wapeler,  a  Westphalian  by  birth,  was  sent  to  the 
mission  of  Conewago  (near  Hanover,  though  in  Adams 
County).  There  Wapeler  erected  a  log-house  for  a 
chapel ;  after  he  left  Conewago  with  health  broken  by 
the  hardships  of  his  frontier  parish,  he  is  said  to  have 
founded  the  church  in  Lancaster.  Wapeler' s  successor, 
Pellentz,  was  also  a  German,  as  was  a  later  laborer. 
Father  Manners,  his  name  being  a  translation  from 
Sittensperger.  From  1758  St.  Joseph's  church  in  Phila- 
delphia had  a  German  Jesuit  stationed  there  who  was 
especially  charged  with  the  direction  of  the  German 
population.  This  was  the  Rev.  Ferdinand  Farmer, 
whose  name  affords  no  key  to  his  nationality  until  we 
learn  that  it  was  in  reality  Steynmeyer.  He  had  been 
previously  at  Lancaster,  whence  he  had  made  journeys 
to  "Geiger's"  like  his  predecessor. 

At  the  end  of  the  Revolution — during  which  we  must 
remember  there  was  no  German  immigration — these 
preponderantly  Teutonic  parishes  reported  a  total  of 
twenty-two  hundred  communicants — more  than  have 
been  estimated  as  the  whole  Catholic  population  in  the 
United  States  at  that  time.  It  is  not  probable  that 
there  was  any  large,  or  indeed  appreciable,  number  of 
Teutonic  Catholics  in  any  other  colony.  In  New  York 
and  New  England  *' Catholicism  was  virtually  extinct."^ 

ij.  G.  Shea,  Catholic  Church  in  Colonial  Times,  p.  396. 

76 


The   Church   People 

Many  colonies,  we  know,  had  severe  laws  against 
"Papists."  In  Maryland,  the  only  especially  Catholic 
colony,  Governor  Calvert  wrote :  **  I  have  reason  to  think 
the  greater  numbers  of  the  Germans  that  are  imported 
profess  that  religion,"  ^  but  their  numbers  were  much 
over-estimated  both  by  their  friends  and  their  enemies. 
Thus,  about  the  same  year,  1740,  we  find  the  three 
churches,  Reformed,  Lutheran  and  Catholic,  awakening 
to  the  fact  that  there  were  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
Germans  beyond  the  sea  who  were  alike  destitute  and 
desirous  of  the  ministrations  of  religion  ;  and  we  see  all 
of  them  organizing — sending  missionaries,  ordaining 
clergymen,  supplying  superintendence,  books,  churches, — 
but  all  of  the  work  was  pitifully  inadequate  to  the  needs 
of  these  Germans  so  far  off  in  the  wilderness  who,  like 
the  man  of  Macedonia  in  St.  Paul's  vision,  were  calling 
to  their  brethren  and  fathers  in  Europe,  ''Come  over 
and  help  us  !  " 

1  July  9th,  1755.  See  letter  in  Scharf  s  History  of  Maryland,  Vol.  i,  p. 
461. 

Note. — The  chief  authorities  which  have  been  followed  on  this  period 
are,  as  before,  Goebel's  '*  Christliches  Leben,"  Good:  "  History  of  the 
Reformed  Church  in  Germany"  (Reading,  1894);  and  "History  of  the 
Reformed  Church  in  America,"  by  the  same  author  (Reading,  1899); 
Dubbs  :  «' Historic  Manual  of  the  Reformed  Church"  (Lancaster,  1885). 
Volume  Vin  of  the  American  Church  History  Series  on  the  German  Re- 
formed Church  is  also  by  Dr.  Dubbs  and  is  a  valuable  condensation  of  the 
above  ;  Dr.  Schmauk's  excellent  "  History  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in 
Pennsylvania"  (publications  of  the  Pennsylvania  German  Society,  volume 
XI,  part  I,  Lancaster,  1902),  of  which,  unfortunately,  but  one  volume  has 
been  published.  Dr.  Schmauk  has  incorporated  in  this  work  a  partial 
translation  of  the  "  Hallesche  Nachrichten"  or  Halle  Reports,  an  invalu- 

77 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

able  source  of  American  Lutheran  history.  Vol.  IV  of  the  American 
Church  History  series,  on  the  Lutheran  Church,  by  the  Rev.  H,  E.  Jacobs, 
necessarily  brief,  may  be  supplemented  by  various  local  and  special  histories. 
Strobel's  "History  of  the  Salzburgers"  (Baltimore,  1855),  does  not  make 
the  most  of  a  fine  subject;  Von  Reek's  "Journal"  (London,  1734),  and 
the  "  Urlsperger  Nachrichten"  (Halle,  I735)>  are  well  summarized  by 
Jacobs.  See  also  Bernheim  :  "History  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  North 
and  South  Carolina"  (Philadelphia,  1872).  For  the  Charity  Schools, 
there  are  a  number  of  different  authorities  ;  Horace  W.  Smith's  "  Life  of 
William  Smith,  D.D.,"  gives  many  original  documents;  a  copy  of  the 
"Brief  History"  is  in  the  Library  of  the  Pennsylvania  Historical  Society. 
For  the  German  Catholics,  see  De  Courcy's  "  Catholic  Church  in  the  United 
States,"  translated  by  J.  G.  Shea  (  New  York,  1 856);  Shea's  "Catholic 
Church  in  Colonial  Times"  (New  York,  1886);  Cobb  :  "Rise  of  Religious 
Liberty  in  America  "  (New  York,  1892). 


78 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    MORAVIANS 

As  in  the  case  of  Muhlenberg,  the  names  of  the 
Moravians  and  their  leader,  Zinzendorf,  have  been  men- 
tioned in  these  pages  before  any  extended  explanation 
or  history  of  the  movement  was  given.  Like  other 
movements  in  the  religious  life  of  the  German  colonists, 
it  showed  itself  most  prominently  in  that  distracted 
decade,  when,  as  the  Ephrata  chronicler  says  :  **  Many 
were  driven  into  such  straits  that  they  knew  not  what  to 
believe." 

The  histoiy  of  the  Moravian  church,  or  the  Unitas 
Fratrum,  as  they  should  be  called,  is  a  long  and  intensely 
interesting  one,  dating  in  its  beginning  from  the  move- 
ment begun  by  Huss,  though  not  ended  with  his  death. 
When  the  Hussite  wars  came  to  an  end  in  the  utter 
exhaustion  of  both  parties,  persecution  forced  them  into 
a  separate  existence  ;  but  they  secured  an  episcopate — 
procuring  ordination  from  a  bishop  of  the  Waldenses — 
and  in  Luther's  time  had  a  church  of  200,000  members, 
a  confession  of  faith,  catechism  and  hymn-book — the 
latter  the  earliest  Protestant  work  of  the  sort.  Persecu- 
tion under  Ferdinand  H  almost  blotted  them  out  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  ;  in  Poland  they 
coalesced  with  the  Reformed,  in  Moravia  they  secretly 
preserved  the  doctrine  and  usages  of  "the   Unity"; — 

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this  is  called  in  Moravian  parlance  the  time  of  the  Hidden 
Seed.  ''  God  searched  out  two  extremes  of  society  for 
his  agents  in  the  resuscitation  of  this  almost  extinct 
evangelical  church  :  a  count  and  a  carpenter."  ^ 

The  carpenter  was  Christian  David.  Giving  himself 
to  the  work  of  an  evangelist,  he  came  in  contact  with 
the  Hidden  Seed  and  assured  them  of  a  refuge  on  the 
estate  of  a  certain  pious  Saxon  count.  This  was  Nicholas 
Ludwig,  Count  of  Zinzendorf,  not  to  mention  other 
titles,  whose  grandfather  had  emigrated  from  Austria, 
'*  esteeming  the  loss  of  all  his  estates  more  than  counter- 
balanced by  the  superior  liberty  of  conscience  which  he 
thus  obtained."  ^ 

The  youthful  count  had  been  brought  up  by  his 
grandmother,  a  pious  but  somewhat  stern  and  arbitrary 
lady,  whose  strict  discipline  seems  not  to  have  shadowed 
the  loving,  joyful  piety  of  her  grandchild.  After  studies 
at  Halle — where  the  Pietist  authorities  tormented  him 
to  produce  a  sufficiently  gloomy  ''conviction  of  sin  " — 
and  travels  over  the  continent,  receptions  at  various 
courts  and  religious  conversations  wherever  he  went,  the 
young  nobleman  married  a  daughter  of  the  noble  house 
of  Reuss  and  settled  upon  an  estate  called  Berthelsdorf, 
withdrawing  himself  as  often  as  possible  from  his  court 
employments  at  Dresden  to  perform  the  duties  of  a 
village  catechist  and  school-master  at  his  country  estate. 

Here  he  gave  refuge  to  the  Moravian  exiles  and  also 

^  Hamilton's  Moravians  ;  American  Church  History  series,  vol.  8,  p.  433. 
2  Latrobe's  preface  to  Spangenberg's  Life  of  Zinzendorf,  p.  6.     English 
translation  and  abridgment  by  Samuel  Jackson. 

80 


The  Moravians 

to  the  little  Protestant  sect  of  the  Schwenkfelders,  founded 
by  a  contemporary  of  Luther  and  existing  ever  since 
under  more  or  less  persecution,  until  the  existing  Catholic 
house  of  Hapsburg  so  annoyed  them  by  Jesuit  mission- 
aries that  they,  like  Zinzendorf's  forefathers,  left  the 
Austrian  dominions  and  took  refuge  in  Saxony. 

After  a  time  Zinzendorf  was  gradually  drawn  nearer 
and  nearer  to  the  Moravian  brethren  whose  colony, 
named  Herrnhut  (the  protection  of  the  Lord),  was 
meanwhile  augmented  by  a  constant  influx  of  refugees. 
The  count  finally  received  ordination  as  a  Lutheran 
clergyman,  after  explanations,  petitions  and  appeals  to 
the  various  powers  that  were  in  the  Germany  of  his  time, 
as  though  he  had  purposed  some  terrible  crime  in  his 
evangelistic  aims.  But  neither  his  rank,  his  high  con- 
nections, nor  his  blameless  intentions  could  save  him 
long.  Presently  he  was  ordered  by  the  Saxon  govern- 
ment to  sell  his  estates,  then  banished,  and  after  a  time 
permitted  to  return;  then  he  was  forbidden  longer  to 
give  shelter  to  the  Schwenkfelders.  In  anticipation  of  a 
final  exile,  Zinzendorf  endeavored  to  provide  some  place 
of  refuge,  and  four  Moravian  colonies  were  projected  in 
various  parts  of  the  world.  One  of  these  was  to  be  in 
Oglethorpe's  colony,  Georgia,  whither  Zinzendorf 
directed  the  Schwenkfelders,  having  succeeded  in  obtain- 
ing land  in  that  State,  and  a  free  passage  thither.  But 
on  arriving  at  Haarlem  the  Schwenkfelders  met  with 
friends  who  arranged  for  them  instead  to  proceed  to 
Pennsylvania.^ 

^The    Schwenkfelders   arrived   in   Pennsylvania  September  24,    1734, 
6  81 


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The  tract  in  Georgia  thus  abandoned  by  the  Schwenk- 
felders  was  taken  up  by  the  Moravians,  who  sent  a  few 
brethren  to  occupy  it.  Meantime,  the  long  impending 
blow  had  fallen  in  Herrnhut.  The  Count  received  his 
sentence  of  banishment,  and  although  he  was  subse- 
quently permitted  to  revisit  Herrnhut,  he  had  henceforth 
'*  no  continuing  city,"  but  spent  the  remainder  of  his  life 
in  evangelistic  journeys  over  the  Continent,  England,  the 
West  Indies,  and  America.  "His  state  of  pilgrimage," 
says  Spangenberg,  ''commenced  with  this,  and  only  ter- 

which  has  ever  since  been  observed  by  the  sect  as  their  "  Memorial  Day," 
with  religious  services  lasting  all  day  ;  between  the  morning  and  afternoon 
services  they  partake  of  a  meal  of  bread,  butter,  and  apple-butter,  whence 
the  familiar  name  of  the  occasion — "  Apple-butter  Day."  For  many  years 
after  their  arrival  the  Schwenkfelders  refrained  from  anything  which  re- 
sembled an  organized  church  with  services  and  preachers,  having  on  this, 
as  well  as  other  subjects,  views  singularly  akin  to  those  of  the  Quakers. 
They  were  always  zealous  for  education,  industrious,  highly  honorable  in 
their  dealings,  and  very  charitable.  Their  young  people  were  instructed 
largely  by  the  means  of  copying  Schwenkfeld's  works  by  hand,  and 
numerous  volumes  of  these  manuscripts  written  and  bound  by  the  members 
of  the  sect  are  still  extant.  They  early  instituted  a  habit  of  correspondence 
with  religious  friends  in  Germany,  and  of  these  letters,  often  beautifully 
written  and  composed,  as  many  as  thirty  or  forty  were  prepared  in  a  single 
year.  At  the  end  of  our  period,  in  1782,  they  finally  adopted  a  constitution 
composed  by  their  minister  Schultz ;  before  this,  many  of  the  sect  strayed 
into  various  opinions,  several  being  earnest  students  of  Boehme  and  his 
English  disciple,  Jane  Leade.  Spangenberg  lived  a  good  while  at  the  house 
of  Christopher  Wiegner,  one  of  the  sect,  having  been  sent  there  by  Zinzen- 
dorf  to  look  after  the  welfare  of  these  religious  refugees  in  the  new  world. 
At  this  time  he  wrote  :  "As  to  my  outward  occupation  it  is  at  present  farm 
work  ;  but  this  is  as  much  blessed  to  my  soul  as  formerly  my  studying  and 
writing,  for  whatever  is  done  by  the  blessing  of  God  thereby  becomes  good. ' ' 
Spangenberg  grew  so  fond  of  the  Schwenkfelders  that  Zinzendorf  declared 
he  had  become  one  of  the  sect, 

82 


The  Moravians 

minated  with  his  Hfe."  ^  At  the  time  of  his  banishment, 
Zinzendorf  finally  received  Moravian  ordination  as  a 
Bishop  of  the  Brethren's  Unity.  At  the  same  time,  while 
on  a  visit  to  Denmark,  his  attention  being  called  to  for- 
eign missions  as  a  duty  of  the  church,  the  first  of  the  far- 
famed  Moravian  missions — that  to  the  negroes  of  the 
West  Indies — was  begun.  The  Georgia  settlement  was 
largely  kept  up  from  a  desire  to  teach  the  Indians  there, 
but  various  hindrances — lack  of  obedience  on  the  part  of 
the  missionaries  sent  there,  the  impossibility  of  access  to 
the  Indians,  and,  finally,  threatenings  of  war — led  to  its 
discontinuance.  Meanwhile,  '*the  banished  count"  had 
gone  with  his  ''pilgrim  congregation"  to  Marienborn  in 
the  Wetterau,  always  a  refuge  for  those  persecuted  either 
for  righteousness  or  fanaticism's  sake.^  Here  at  Herrn- 
haag  was  the  center  of  the  Moravian  church,  and  here 
the  Count  made  his  home  whenever  he  was  not  on  some 
religious  journey,  and  all  his  journeys  were  religious. 
Presently  he  went  to  St.  Thomas,  to  see  the  progress  of 

^  Life  of  Zinzendorf,  translated  by  Jackson,  The  type  of  religious  life 
which  Zinzendorf  and  the  Moravian  Brethren  finally  developed  was  not  at 
all  mystical,  it  was  rather  pietistic  ;  but  it  was  a  reaction  from  the  gloom 
and  narrowness  of  some  later  Pietism.  It  was  a  religion  of  peace  and  joy, 
of  enthusiasm,  of  warm  love  to  God,  and  helpfulness  to  our  neighbor.  This 
type,  no  longer  concerned  with  orthodoxy  of  belief,  nor  with  mystical  visions 
and  ecstasies,  but  with  helping  men  to  realize  the  love  of  Christ  to  them 
and  to  show  forth  that  love  to  their  fellowmen,  produced  Moravian  evan- 
gelistic endeavors — their  home  missions,  the  Diaspora  work  among  the 
members  of  the  European  State  churches,  and  their  glorious  and  self-sacri- 
ficing foreign  missions  :  all  were  a  part  of  the  same  movement  and  motived 
by  the  same  loving  zeal. 

2  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Dunkers  had  one  of  their  earliest  con- 
gregations at  Marienborn  twenty  years  before. 

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the  mission  there,  and  thence  to  the  Continent  of  North 
America.  He  was  accompanied  on  this  journey  by  one 
member  of  his  family,  the  Countess  Benigna,  his  eldest 
daughter,  a  vigorous  and  devoted  girl  of  sixteen.  Zinzen- 
dorf 's  interest  had  been  much  aroused  by  accounts  of 
the  religious  destitution  suffered  by  the  German  colonists 
in  America, — accounts  given  him  by  George  Whitefield, 
the  English  evangelist,  at  that  time  a  warm  friend  and 
admirer  of  the  Moravians,  with  whose  society  in  Fetter 
Lane  he  frequently  met. 

Zinzendorf  had  sent  to  Pennsylvania  a  Moravian 
brother,  Andrew  Eschenbach,  who  had  begun  labors 
at  Oley  (now  Berks  County).  Whitefield,  also,  finding 
the  distressed  condition  of  the  Moravian  colony  in 
Georgia — they  had  made  another  unsuccessful  effort, 
this  time  to  preach  to  a  forlorn  little  Swiss- German 
settlement  at  Purysburg,  S.  C,  and  evangelize  the  slaves 
there — took  the  remnants  of  the  pious  band  to  Pennsyl- 
vania in  his  own  sloop,  and  set  them  to  building  an 
orphan  house  for  him  on  a  tract  of  land  which  he  had 
just  acquired  at  Nazareth;  but  in  the  midst  of  the  work, 
it  being  the  beginning  of  winter,  Whitefield  fell  out  with 
them.  It  seems  that  a  discussion  had  most  inoppor- 
tunely arisen  on  that  perennial  subject  of  contention, 
the  doctrine  of  election,  and  the  Moravian  leaders  were 
discovered  not  to  be  believers  in  a  limited  atonement. 
Thereupon  Whitefield,  with  as  little  logic  as  charity,  re- 
torted by  enjoining  them  to  "quit  this  land  at  once." 
It  is  but  just  to  note  that  this  occurred  at  the  time  of 
Whitefield' s  break  with  the  Wesleys  on  the  same  doc- 

84 


The   Moravians 

trine ;  and  he  was  probably  harassed  and  sensitive.  The 
remnant  of  those  sorely  tried  Christians  began  a  log 
house  on  the  Lehigh,  and  there  they  were  cheered  by 
the  intelligence  that  Count  Zinzendorf  was  on  his  way 
to  America.  Landing  at  New  York  and  stopping  only 
to  hold  a  few  religious  meetings  in  its  neighborhood,  he 
and  his  party  reached  the  settlement  on  the  Lehigh  just 
before  Christmas.  The  season,  and  the  fact  that  the 
brethren  were  housed  in  a  cabin  part  of  which  was  used 
as  a  stable,  naturally  suggested  the  name  of  Bethlehem 
for  the  place.  Zinzendorf  did  not  long  remain  in  Beth- 
lehem; he  felt  so  strongly  the  need  of  religious  work 
among  the  neglected  church  people  and  the  warring 
sects  of  Pennsylvania  that  he  almost  immediately  began 
his  labors  in  this  outer  field.  The  forlorn  Lutheran  con- 
gregation in  Philadelphia  called  him  and  he  became  its 
pastor,  suggesting  the  young  minister — Pyrlaus — as  his 
assistant.  On  "Second  Christmas"  (December  26th)  of 
the  same  year,  Henry  Antes,  ''the  pious  elder  of  Falk- 
ner's  Swamp,"  had  sent  out  a  call  for  a  meeting  of  what 
was  afterwards  known  as  the  Pennsylvania  Synod — "  not 
for  the  purpose  of  disputing,  but  in  order  to  treat  peace- 
ably concerning  the  most  important  articles  of  the  faith, 
and  to  ascertain  how  far  they  might  all  agree  in  the  most 
essential  points  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  mutual 
love  and  forbearance."     (Antes'  Call.) 

At  the  first  Synod  delegates  were  present  from  nearly 
all  the  religious  bodies  of  Pennsylvania;  but  the  Menno- 
nites  and  Schwenkfelders  soon  withdrew — the  latter,  in- 
deed, were  treated  by  Zinzendorf  more  in  the  tone  of  a 

85 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

feudal  lord  dealing  with  disobedient  vassals  than  of  a 
humble  minister  of  the  gospel ;  besides,  the  Schwenkfel- 
ders  had  a  feeling  respecting  the  church  and  the  sacra- 
ments much  hke  that  held  by  the  Quakers,  while  Zinzen- 
dorf  always  took  a  strongly  Lutheran  view  of  these 
matters.  This  probably  alienated  the  Mennonites  and 
Friends,  among  whom  the  Moravians  had  no  success. 
A  delegate  from  the  Bunkers  reported:  "For  three 
days  I  heard  queer  and  wonderful  things  there.  After 
my  return  home  I  went  to  my  Superintendent  and  said 
that  I  looked  upon  the  Count's  conferences  as  snares  for 
the  purpose  of  bringing  simple-minded  and  inexperienced 
converts  back  to  infant  baptism.  We  consulted  with 
each  other  what  to  do  and  agreed  to  hold  a  yearly  con- 
ference, or,  as  we  call  it,  a  Great  Assembly.  This  is  the 
beginning  and  foundation  of  the  Great  Assembly  of  the 
Baptists"  ^ — or,  as  it  is  now  called,  the  Annual  Meeting. 
The  Bunkers'  conscience  seems  to  have  been  troubled 
because  baptism  was  administered  by  sprinkling  instead 
of  immersion.  Prior  Onesimus  (Eckerlin),  of  the  Eph- 
rata  Cloister,  with  several  brethren,  was  also  present  at 
the  early  conferences,  but  Beissel  was  unfavorable  to 
them,  as  he  was  to  everything  undertaken  or  approved 
by  the  Eckerlins,  and  soon  the  Ephrata  Brethren  ceased 
their  attendance.  Before  long  the  church  people  sus- 
pected the  Moravians  of  intending  to  set  up  another  de- 
nomination, though  in  reahty  nothing  could  be  further 
from  Zinzendorfs  thought.  He,  however,  could  not 
attend  all  the  seven  meetings  which  were  held  in  differ- 

^ Brumbaugh ;  German  Baptist  Brethren,  p.  477. 

86 


The   Moravians 

ent  places  through  the  settled  parts  of  the  province,  for 
he  was  absent  during  the  summer  visiting  the  Indians, 
with  whom  he  had  a  great  desire  to  begin  mission  work. 
Beside  a  preliminaiy  visit  among  the  Delawares,  he  in- 
spected the  new  work  at  Shekomeko  on  the  border  be- 
tween New  York  and  Connecticut,  and  made  a  trip  full 
of  hardship  and  danger  to  Wyoming,  where  even  he  was 
compelled  to  admit  that  no  lasting  impression  had  been 
made,  and  where  he  was  in  danger  of  his  life,  being 
rescued  by  the  timely  reappearance  of  Conrad  Weiser. 

Meantime,  Boehme,  the  earliest  Reformed  minister  in 
Pennsylvania,  had  stirred  up  certain  fellows  of  the  baser 
sort  to  lock  the  Lutheran  congregation  out  of  their 
church  and  assault  Pyrlaus ;  later,  he  issued  a  violent 
pamphlet  against  Zinzendorf.  ''Gilbert  Tennant,  the 
Presbyterian  minister  at  Philadelphia,  preached  from  the 
pulpit,"  writes  Zinzendorf,  "that  Benigna,  Countess  of 
Zinzendorf,  is  not  my  daughter,  but  a  child  that  I  had 
taken  from  the  lieutenant  of  a  vessel;  and  everybody 
asked  my  child  if  it  is  so."^ 

Gilbert  Tennant  published  several  sermons  against  *'  a 
pernicious  new  sect  of  people  called  Moravian  Brethren 
or  Hezenhouters,"  in  which  he  thundered  against  ''the 
detestable  doctrine  of  the  Moravians,"  "the  Count's 
damnable  heresies  and  errors,"  called  them  Antinomians 
and  Universalists  and  finally  declared  that  "it  would  take 
a  large  stretch  of  charity  to  conclude  there  is  the  least 
measure  of  Saving  Grace  in  them,  notwithstanding  of  all 
their  great  appearance."      His  book  is  concluded  by  the 

1  Zinzendorf  s  letter  to  Lord  Granville,  May,  1753. 

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't> 


translation  of  a  sermon  having  no  apparent  relation  to 
the  Moravians,  by  Abraham  Hellenbock  of  Rotterdam, 
on  ''Take  us  the  foxes,  the  little  foxes  that  spoil  our 
vines,"  a  wondrous  allegorical  performance. 

Shortly  after  Zinzendorfs  return  to  Bethlehem  from 
his  perilous  expedition  to  Wyoming,  Muhlenberg  arrived 
in  Philadelphia.  He  had,  of  course,  no  connection  with 
the  disturbances  which  had  accompanied  the  preaching 
of  the  Moravians  in  the  Lutheran  congregation  at  that 
place,  and  Zinzendorf  resigned  the  work  into  his  hands 
without  any  open  discord.  The  Count  had  received 
news  from  Europe  concerning  church  matters  there 
which  made  him  feel  his  presence  in  Europe  important, 
and  he  and  his  daughter  therefore  returned  in  the  early 
months  of  1743.  Before  leaving,  Zinzendorf  made  an 
address,  which  he  called  his  ''Pennsylvania  Testament," 
in  which  he  laid  down,  to  a  company  of  his  sympathizers, 
the  principle  that  America  must  be  treated  in  quite  a 
different  manner  from  Europe,  "for  to  stretch  both  over 
the  same  last  would  spoil  everything  in  the  Saviour's 
cause." 

It  is  unfortunate  for  the  Moravian  church  in  our  coun- 
try that  Zinzendorf,  a  man  peculiarly  apt  to  be  swayed 
strongly  by  passing  impressions,  did  not  permit  his 
brethren  to  live  up  to  this  doctrine,  but  sometimes  in- 
sisted upon  applying  European  rules  to  the  very  differ- 
ent conditions  of  America.  Particularly  was  this  the 
case  as  to  the  avoidance  of  proselytizing,  the  urging  of 
converts  to  remain  in  connection  with  their  own  denomi- 
nation while  also  being  connected  with  the  Moravians; 

88 


The  Moravians 

which  inevitably  led,  under  the  conditions  of  those  times, 
to  a  divided  allegiance  and  to  the  accusation  of  Jesuitry 
and  false  pretence. 

Spangenberg,  now  left  to  be  the  leader  of  the  Breth- 
ren, was  better  fitted  to  work  in  a  new  country  than  was 
the  noble,  ardent,  impractical  gentleman  who  had  just 
left  Pennsylvania.  Under  the  former's  administration 
the  Brethren  continued  their  missionary  and  itinerary 
work,  going  not  only  to  many  places  in  Pennsylvania, 
but  to  Georgia,  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  a  number 
of  preaching  places  in  New  Jersey,  Monocacy  in  Mary- 
land, and  even  as  far  as  "Canatschochary  (Canajoharie) 
beyond  Albany,"  where  they  found  destitute  Lutherans 
very  glad  to  listen  once  again  to  the  gospel  in  their  own 
language.  A  number  of  missions  were  founded  among 
the  Indians  in  which  the  difficulties  experienced  were 
quite  as  much  from  the  opposition  of  the  whites  as 
from  the  hardheartedness  of  the  Indians.  Schools  were 
opened  in  several  places,  mainly,  however,  to  educate 
the  children  of  the  community.  The  famous  Moravian 
boarding-schools  had  a  later  origin. 

Bishop  Cammerhoff  took  an  especial  interest  in  this  part 
of  church  work.  In  the  Indian  missions,  also,  he  showed 
the  warmest  interest,  and  his  death  was  brought  about 
after  but  four  years  of  episcopal  work,  by  the  hardships 
and  dangers  of  his  daring  missionary  tour  to  the  Onan- 
dagas  in  New  York  State.  In  some  respects  Cammer- 
hoff had  an  unfortunate  influence,  for  he  brought  over 
with  him  much  of  the  puerile  and  extravagant  fashion  in 
speaking    of  religious   things    which    prevailed    in    the 

89 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

European  Unity  during  what  was  afterwards  known  as 
the  Sifting  Time  ;  this  distressed  and  alienated  many  of 
their  strongest  and  warmest  friends,  especially  Henry 
Antes. 

One  of  the  great  monuments  to  Spangenberg  in  the 
Moravian  church  was  his  foundation  and  management 
of  what  is  known  as  the  Economy  at  Bethlehem.  In 
this  community  all  worked  for  the  good  of  all,  receiving 
board  and  clothing,  and  the  missionaries  their  traveling 
expenses  ;  the  product  of  their  farming  partly  supported 
the  community,  besides  which  thirty-two  different  trades 
were  carried  on,  ranging  from  milling  and  tanning  to 
soap-boiling  and  shoe-cleaning.  Besides  this  a  number 
of  houses  and  workshops  were  built  at  various  settlements 
and  Indian  missions,  and  even  a  missionary  ship,  the 
snow  **  Irene,"  which  served  the  Brethren  ten  years, 
until  captured  in  1758  by  a  French  privateer.  The 
church  settlement  at  Nazareth  was  not  so  much  a  mission 
station  as  Bethlehem  ;  it  was  managed  on  what  was  called 
the  patriarchal  plan,  the  settlers  being  expected  to  raise 
in  farming  what  was  needed  to  support  the  Bethlehem 
"servants  of  the  church."  But  they  always  asked  '*a 
blessing  on  the  sweat  of  the  brow  and  faithfulness  in 
business,"  ^  and  hymns  were  written  and  love  feasts  cele- 
brated for  many  different  trades  and  occupations  in  the 
Nazareth  settlement.  Spangenberg  also  presided  at 
several  Synods  which  were  gradually  becoming  exclu- 
sively Moravian  ;  and  finally  Zinzendorf 's  idea  of  a  union 
of  all  Christians  under  the  banner  of  the  "  Enthroned 

^  A  petition  still  in  use  in  the  Sunday  morning  Litany  of  the  Moravians. 

90 


The   Moravians 

Lamb  of  God"  was  given  up  and  in  1748  the  formation 
of  a  Moravian  denomination  in  America  was  at  length  de- 
cided upon  and  accompHshed  under  the  presidency  of 
Bishop  de  Watteville.  We  may  call  the  crowning  achieve- 
ment of  Spangenberg's  superintendency  the  establish- 
ment of  the  church  settlement  of  Wachovia  in  North 
Carolina,  which  was  founded  amid  almost  insuperable 
hardships  and  difficulties,  Spangenberg  having  gone  with 
the  exploring  party  which  located  the  tract  and  named  it 
after  an  Austrian  estate  of  the  Zinzendorf  family.  The 
motives  for  beginning  this  settlement  were  much  the 
same  as  those  which  led  to  the  founding  of  Bethlehem — 
a  desire  to  do  home  mission  work  among  the  whites 
there,  and  to  preach  Christianity  to  the  Indians.  The 
first  colonists  cheerfully  put  up  with  a  deserted  log  hut  ; 
but  soon  a  settlement  grew  and  other  villages  were 
founded  in  the  surrounding  tract.  Most  of  these  villages 
were  given  religious  names,  such  as  Bethabara,  Bethania, 
Hope,  Friedland,  Salem — the  last  named  became  the 
largest  and  finally  was  the  center  of  the  settlement  and 
capital  of  the  southern  province  in  the  American  church. 

But  all  this  expansion  of  the  Brethren's  Unity  is  not 
different  from  the  annals  of  any  other  church,  save  as  the 
Economy  and  the  church-settlement  idea  are  peculiar. 
The  unique  features  of  what  might  be  called  the  Mora- 
vian period  in  the  religious  life  of  the  Germans  in  this 
country  showed  themselves  at  the  period  of  the  first 
transplanting  of  Moravianism  to  America,  and  most 
strongly  under  the  influence  ot  Zinzendorf 

It  is  difficult  to  give  a  dispassionate  view,  even  at  this 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

length  of  time,  of  Moravianism  as  an  episode  in  religious 
history.  From  one  point  of  view  it  appears  as  a  grand 
but  premature  attempt  at  Christian  union;  from  an- 
other— and  that  the  standpoint  of  most  of  Zinzendorf's 
ecclesiastical  contemporaries — as  a  confusing  and  divi- 
sive effort.  It  is  quite  evident  that  Zinzendorf's  idea  of 
forming  a  Unity  of  pious  and  enlightened  people  outside 
of  and  above  their  various  denominational  connections 
was  impossible  of  realization,  though  something  of 
the  sort  had  been  accomplished  by  the  founders  of 
Pietism  in  their  ''colleges"  within  the  two  Protestant 
churches.  Apparently  the  state  of  religion  among 
German-Americans  was  not  so  desperate  as  Zinzendorf 
supposed  ;  at  all  events,  they  were  not  willing  to  ad- 
mit him  and  his  Moravians  as  their  preachers  and 
teachers. 

One  knows  not  how  to  regard  Zinzendorf;  whether  to 
revere  and  admire  him  as  did  many  of  his  own  people ; 
to  think  him  an  enthusiast,  a  mischievous  interloper,  or 
a  disturber  of  the  peace  of  the  church  as  did  many  of 
the  churchmen  his  own  contemporaries ;  or  to  hold  a 
middle  course  and  think  him  and  his  fellow-laborers  men 
sincerely  desirous  of  doing  good,  and  who  frequently 
accomplished  much,  but  who  were  sometimes  mistaken, 
sometimes  misled  in  the  methods  which  they  chose. 
Certainly  no  one  can  read  the  story  of  the  Moravian 
movement  without  feeling  the  sincerity,  the  self-sacrifice, 
the  loveliness  of  spirit  which  were  the  most  marked 
characteristics  of  those  who  so  earnestly  sought  to  do 
good  to   the  scattered,   ignorant   people — English  and 

92 


The    Moravians 

German,    Quaker,    Lutheran    and    Separatist,    Indians, 
negroes  or  white  men — in  America. 

Note. — A  good  sketch  of  the  Moravians  is  that  by  J.  Taylor  Hamilton, 
American  Church  History  series,  Vol.  IV.  (N.  Y.,  1895).  Spangenberg's 
"Life  of  Zinzendorf"  is  translated  and  abridged  by  Samuel  Jackson, 
(London,  1838).  L.  T.  Reichel's  "Early  History  of  the  Moravian 
Church,"  (Nazareth,  1888),  unfortunately  goes  only  to  1748,  but  the  his- 
tory is  to  a  certain  extent  carried  on  by  another  volume,  II,  of  the  trans- 
actions of  the  Moravian  Historical  Society  (Nazareth,  1888),  which  contains 
sketches  of  many  Moravian  leaders  and  of  the  church  in  their  time.  J. 
M.  Levering,  <' History  of  Bethlehem  in  Pennsylvania,"  (Bethlehem, 
1903),  also  gives  much  more  than  its  title  promises.  For  the  Schwenk- 
felders,  see  volume  XIII,  Proceedings  of  the  Pennsylvania-German  So- 
ciety ;  H.  W.  Kriebel,  "Schwenkfelders  in  Pennsylvania,"  (Lancaster, 
1904),  and  Clewell,  "History  of  Wachovia  in  North  Carolina,"  (N.  Y., 
1902),  for  its  subject.  See  also  Gilbert  Tennant,  "The  necessity  of  hold- 
ing fast  the  truth  presented  in  three  Sermons,  etc."      (Boston,  1743.) 


93 


CHAPTER   V 

THE   METHODISTS 

The  influence  of  German  religious  life  upon  the  early 
leaders  of  Methodism  is  not  generally  acknowledged, 
perhaps  not  generally  known.  The  reciprocal  influence 
of  Methodism  on  the  religious  life  of  Germans  in 
America  is  apparently  still  less  known.  The  great  fore- 
runner and  companion  of  John  Wesley,  George  White- 
field,  had,  as  told  in  a  previous  chapter,  some  unpleasant 
dealings  with  the  Moravians  on  ''the  Nazareth  tract," 
but  he  had  earlier  as  well  as  later  intercourse  with  them, 
and  with  other  German  Christians  which  was  more 
agreeable  and  profitable.  In  his  early  ministry  at 
Savannah  he  speaks  with  delight  and  admiration  of  the 
Salzburgers'  modesty  and  piety  and  gratitude,^  of  their 
clergymen — ''two  such  pious  ministers  as  I  have  not 
often  seen  ;"  he  was  encouraged  by  their  example  and 
that  of  "  Prof  Francke,"  to  found  his  Orphan-house  in 
Georgia.  Both  here  and  in  London  he  met  and  liked 
the  Moravians,  and  "could  not  avoid  admiring  their 
great  simplicity  and  deep  experience  in  the  inward 
life.""  Afterward,  at  Germantown,  Whitefield  went  to 
"see  one  Conrad  Matthew,  an  aged  Hermit,  who  has 
lived  a  solitary  life  near  forty  years  ;  he  was  heir  to  a 

^Journals,  July  ii,  1738. 
^Journals,  p.  229. 

94 


The  Methodists 

great  estate,  but  chose  a  voluntary  poverty  ;  he  has 
worked  hard,  but  would  always  work  without  wages  ;  he 
is  now  unable  to  do  much,  but  God  sends  somebody  or 
other  to  feed  him."  This  was  the  last  survivor  of  the 
Hermits  of  the  Wissahickon. 

The  Journal  of  Seward,  Whitefield's  traveling  com- 
panion, says,  under  date  of  April  24,  1740,  "Came  to 
Christopher  Weigner's  plantation  in  Skippack  where 
many  Dutch  people  are  settled  and  where  the  famous 
Mr.  Spaletnberg  resided  lately.  It  was  surprising  to 
see  such  a  Multitude  of  people  gathered  together  in 
such  a  Wilderness  Country,  Thirty  Miles  distant  from 
Philadelphia.  Our  Brother  was  exceedingly  carried 
out  in  his  Sermon,  *  *  *  and  after  he  had  done,  our 
dear  Friend,  Peter  Boehler  preach' d  in  Dutch  to  those 
who  could  not  understand  our  Brother  in  English. 
Came  to  Hemy  Antes'  plantation  in  Frederick  Town- 
ship, Ten  Miles  farther  in  the  country,  where  was  also 
a  Multitude  equally  surprising  with  that  we  had  in  the 
Morning.  *  *  *  They  were  Germans  where  we  dined 
and  supp'd,  and  they  pray'd  and  sang  in  Dutch,  as  we 
did  in  English,  before  and  after  eating."  White  field 
writes  subsequently  that  he  has  "  had  sweet  times  with 
some  Lutheran  ministers  in  Philadelphia."^  After 
Whitefield's  death,  one  of  the  many  funeral  sermons 
preached  was  by  Zubly,  the  eloquent  Reformed  minister 
of  Savannah,  '*  at  his  meeting,  which  was  also  in  mourn- 
ing," as  noted  by  the  Georgia  Gazette. 

The  connection  of  the  Wesleys  with  German  relig- 

1  Journal,  October  8,  1746. 

95 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

ious  life  is  much  more  extensive  and  better  known. 
The  conversations  which  John  Wesley  had  with  the 
Moravian  brethren,  led  by  Nitschmann,  who  were  going 
out,  on  the  same  ship  with  the  Wesleys,  to  continue 
their  Georgian  mission,  the  incident  of  the  storm  and 
the  Germans'  calm  and  pious  courage  which  so  im- 
pressed Wesley,  his  conversings  with  Spangenberg  and 
Nitschmann — even  permitting  the  Moravians  to  cast  the 
lot  upon  his  intended  marriage — are  well  known.  So 
are  his  and  his  brother's  frequent  interviews  with  Peter 
Bohler  in  London  and  Oxford,  and  John  Wesley's  New 
Birth  while  listening  to  '*  one  reading  "  of  Luther's  preface 
to  the  epistle  to  the  Romans.  It  is  not  so  often  men- 
tioned that  John  Wesley  put  himself  under  the  spiritual 
direction  of  the  Moravians,  visited  Baron  de  Watteville, 
and  subsequently  Zinzendorf  in  his  banishment  at 
Marienborn,  then  went  to  Herrnhut  and  also  to  Halle. 
At  the  latter  place  he  would  not  be  likely  to  find  a  very 
favorable  opinion  of  the  Moravians,  for  the  spirit  of  the 
old  pietistic  university  was  now  opposed  to  them. 

Perhaps  this  is  part  of  the  reason  why  Wesley  soon 
began  to  question  the  principles  and  practices  of  his 
new  religious  friends.  Nevertheless  he  admired  many 
things  which  he  had  seen  and  heard  sufficiently  to  pub- 
lish jointly  with  his  brother  Charles  a  volume  of  "  Hymns 
and  Sacred  Poems,  "^  in  which  we  find,  out  of  the  one 
hundred  and  thirty-nine  ''Sacred  Poems,"  twenty- two 
translations  from  the  German,  many  of  which  have  be- 

1  By  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  Phila.  Published  by  Andrew  Bradford, 
1740.  "Sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  in  Georgia." 

96 


The  Methodists 

come  naturalized  as  English  hymns.  They  are  among 
the  best  lyrics  in  a  book  which  contains  much  that  is 
"devout,  but  literaiy  rubbish,  and  utterly  unworthy  of 
being  used  in  public  worship."^  In  the  same  year  John 
Wesley  published  a  translation  and  abridgment  of  one 
of  Francke's  treatises,  ''Nicodemus  or  the  Fear  of  Man." 

But  later  the  ''unhappy  divisions"  occurred  between 
the  Moravian  Society  in  Fetter  Lane  and  the  Wesleys. 
The  brothers  had  been  at  first  appointed  as  its  ministers, 
but  later  a  young  German,  Molther,  (whose  wife  had  ac- 
companied Benigna,  Countess  of  Zinzendorf,  to  Bethle- 
hem), was  sent  from  Marienborn  to  assist  them.  He 
soon  became  the  favorite  in  the  congregation,  and  taught 
with  much  vehemence  the  wildest  theories  and  expres- 
sions current  in  the  German  Unity  during  the  Sifting 
Time.  After  much  unprofitable  and  confusing  discus- 
sion, Wesley  was  finally  excluded  from  ministering  in 
Fetter  Lane  and  led  his  few  adherents  to  the  Foundry,  a 
half-ruined  manufactory;  in  this  building  the  first  Meth- 
odist society  was  formed  in  July,  1740.  Attempts  of  a 
later  date  to  effect  a  reconciliation  were  in  vain ;  each 
church  went  its  own  way;  but  the  Wesleys  had  taken 
much,  in  hymnology,  doctrine,  and  details  of  organiza- 
tion, from  the  Germans,  and  these  things  still  mark  the 
Methodist  Church  with  the  German  influences  of  its 
birth. 

Many  years  afterward,  in  1758,  Wesley  being  in  Ire- 
land, visited  a  httle  settlement  at  Court  Mattrass  near 
Limerick,   "a  colony  of  Germans  whose  parents  came 

^  Tyennan  :     Life  and  Times  of  John  Wesley,  p.  291. 
7  97 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

out  of  the  Palatinate  fifty  years  ago.  Having  no  minis- 
ter, they  were  becoming  eminent  for  an  utter  neglect  of 
all  religion.  But  they  are  washed  since  they  heard  the 
truth  which  is  able  to  save  their  souls.  An  oath  is  now 
rarely  heard  among  them,  or  a  drunkard  seen  in  their 
borders.  Court  Mattrass  is  built  in  the  form  of  a  square, 
in  the  middle  of  which  they  have  placed  a  pretty  large 
preaching  house."  ^ 

These  now  pious  and  prosperous  people  were  the 
descendants  of  a  colony  of  three  thousand  **poor  Pala- 
tines "  sent  to  Ireland  by  Good  Queen  Anne  in  1709, 
when  thousands  of  distressed  Germans  came  to  London 
and  were  sent,  some  to  North  Carolina,  some  to  the 
province  of  New  York,  and  some  to  other  parts  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  A  few  years  after  Wesley's  visit, 
several  of  the  Palatines  of  Court  Mattrass  emigrated  to 
New  York;  their  local  preacher,  Philip  Embury"^  and  his 
cousin,    Mrs.  Barbara  Heck,  were  among  the  emigrants. 

'Tn  the  new  land,  amid  the  struggles  to  establish 
themselves  which  awaited  the  little  company  of  poor 
Palatine  weavers,  Philip  Embury  demitted  his  humble 
ministry.  At  this  juncture  there  'arose  a  mother  in 
Israel,' — Barbara  Heck.  Coming  one  day  into  a  neigh- 
bor's house,  she  found  some  Palatines  engaged  in  card- 
playing.  To  the  pious  Wesleyan  woman  this  was  a 
threatening  of  perdition.  She  threw  the  cards  in  the 
fire,  and  left  the  terrified  card-players,  to  go  immediately 

1  Wesley's  Journal  abridged;  quoted  in  Diffenderfer's  German  Exodus  to 
England,  p.  335. 

2  Amburg — See  Diffenderfer' s  German  Exodus. 

98 


The  Methodists 

to  Embury's  house.  There  she  knelt  at  the  feet  of  the 
young  preacher,  beseeching  him  with  tears  no  longer  to 
be  silent,  but  to  preach  to  his  backsliding  countrymen. 
*God  will  require  our  blood  at  your  hand,'  she  declared. 
Embury  responded  to  the  appeal  of  his  slumbering  sense 
of  duty.  Barbara  Heck  went  out,  collected  four  other 
like-minded  ones,  and  to  this  little  company  Embury 
preached,  they  sang  hymns,  a  'class'  was  formed,  and 
Embuiy  became  its  leader, — the  first  class-leader  of 
American  Methodism."  (''The  Germans  in  Colonial 
Times,"  pp.  y^,  79.)  Barbara  Heck  devised  a  plan  by 
which  a  plain  church-building  was  erected.^  Philip  Em- 
bury wrought  upon  the  church,  being  a  carpenter  by 
trade,  and  for  this  he  received  pay,  which  with  occasional 
donations,  was  all  the  salary  he  ever  received.  There 
were  many  converted ;  presently,  Capt.  Webb,  the  mili- 
tary evangelist  of  early  Methodism,  came  to  help  them. 
In  a  few  years  Embury  removed  to  Camden,  (Washing- 
ton County),  New  York,  accompanied  by  several  friends ; 
his  kinsman,  Peter  Switzer,  and  Abraham  Biininger,  a 
Moravian  missionary  among  the  Indians  and  whites,  who 
had  crossed  the  Atlantic  with  Wesley,  in  1735.  Here, 
again,  Embury  founded  a  little  Methodist  society,  to 
which  he  ministered  during  the  remainder  of  his  short 
life,  for  he  died  in  his  forty-fifth  year,  having  injured  him- 
self fatally  while  mowing.  His  relatives  and  those  of 
Barbara  Heck  subsequently  emigrated  to  Canada. 

^  Back  of  this  was  finally  erected  a  parsonage  for  the  use  of  the  travel- 
ling evangelists  and  furnished  by  gifts  from  the  female  members  :  thus 
'*  Mrs.  Benninger  "  gave  a  window  curtain  and  '*  Mrs.  Hickey  "  one  chair 
and  cushion. 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

There  was  apparently  some  Methodist  missionary  work 
done  among  the  Germans  of  the  Pipe  Creek  region  of 
Maryland  before  Embury's  preaching  was  resumed  in 
New  York  :  but  the  evidence  of  it  is  largely  traditional 
and  fails  to  give  reliable  dates.  A  class-leader,  named 
Robert  Strawbridge,  came  to  this  country  in  1 760,  went 
to  Sam's  Creek,  (Frederick  County,  Md.,)  and  as  soon  as 
his  log  house  was  finished,  began  to  hold  meetings  there. 
Subsequently,  while  itinerating  in  Maryland,  Strawbridge, 
contrary  to  Wesley's  advice,  administered  the  ordinances  ; 
but  his  converts  were  much  on  his  side  and  a  German 
Reformed  minister,  Benedict  Swope,  is  quoted  as  saying, 
"Mr.  Wesley  did  not  do  well  in  hindering  Methodist 
preachers  from  giving  the  ordinances  to  their  followers." 
Perhaps  Swope's  opinion  was  biassed  by  the  fact  that  he 
himself  ministered  a  good  while  previous  to  ordination. 
When,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  As- 
bury  attended  the  Baltimore  conference  of  Methodists 
which  met  at  Pipe  Creek,  he  noted  in  his  journal  (Vol. 
Ill,  p.  27),  ''Here  Mr.  Strawbridge  formed  the  first 
society  in  Maryland  and  in  America," — which  would  give 
it  the  priority  over  Embury's  church  in  New  York. 

Among  those  in  connection  with  this  society  was  a 
travelling  preacher,  John  Hagarty,  who  is  said  (in  spite 
of  his  name)  to  have  been  able  to  preach  in  German  and 
in  English.  In  the  reminiscences  of  an  early  itinerant 
we  have  an  account^  of  his  meeting  in  18 13  with  one  of 
Strawbridge 's  German  converts  :  *T  was  traveling  a  soli- 
tary path  in  the  woods,  between  Barnesville  and  Marietta, 


1  Autobiography  of  James  B.  Finley,  pp.  262-3. 


The  Methodists 

Ohio,  and  came  upon  an  old  man  of  the  most  grotesque 
appearance,  trudging  along  at  a  slow  rate,  half  bent,  with 
an  ax  and  two  broomsticks  on  his  shoulder."  As  I  ap- 
proached him  I  said,  "Well,  grandfather,  how  do  you 
do?"  He  was  a  German  and  replied,  '*It  ish  well." 
''You  seem  to  be  poor  as  well  as  old  ?  "  "O,  yes,  in  dis 
world  I  has  noding,  but  in  de  oder  world  I  has  a  King- 
dom." '*Do  you  love  God?"  ''Yes,  mit  all  my  heart, 
and  Gott  loves  me."  "How  long  a  time  have  you  been 
loving  God?"  "Dis  fifty  years."  "Do  you  belong  to 
any  church?"  "O  yes,  I  bees  a  Metodist."  "Where 
did  you  join  the  Methodists?  "  "I  jine  de  Metodists  in 
Maryland  under  dat  great  man  of  Gott,  Strawbridge,  in 
Pipe  Creek,  and  my  wife,  too,  and  Gott  has  been  my 
Vater  and  my  friend  ever  since ;  and  I  bless  Gott  I  vill 
soon  get  home  to  see  him  in  Himmel."  This  aged  Ger- 
man's conversion  under  Strawbridge  must  have  been 
about  1763. 

Another  of  Strawbridge's  converts  was  the  means  of 
awakening  Philip  Gatch,  son  of  a  Prussian  redemptioner 
of  Maryland,  who  afterwards  was  one  of  the  first  native 
American  Methodist  itinerants.  Strawbridge  also  min- 
istered to  the  community  at  Bohemia  Manor,  among  the 
chief  families,  the  Bayards  and  Sluyters,  descendants  of 
the  Labadists,  with  whom  Whitefield  had  had  a  great 
work.  "Mr.  Solomon  Hersey  that  lived  below  the 
present  Bohemia  Mills  at  what  was  then  called  Sluyter's 
Mill  was  the  first  available  friend  to  Methodism:  he 
had  the  preaching  at  his  house  a  number  of  years 
and  the  first  society  on   the  Eastern  Shore  (of  Mary- 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

land)  was    formed    at    Hersey's    in    1772."     (Lednum, 

P-  73-) 

A  few  scattered  notes  concerning  Germans  who  be- 
came connected  with  the  Methodist  movement  in  these 
pre-Revolutionary  days  may  be  added  :  they  are  neces- 
sarily scattered,  for  the  bonds  which  united  these  con- 
verts into  organized  bodies — those  of  the  United 
Brethren,  and  the  Evangelical  Association  often  called 
German  Methodists — were  not  yet  formed  ;  this  took 
place  only  after  the  Revolutionary  storm  was  over. 
But  these  names  and  incidents  may  furnish  some  idea  of 
the  widespread  nature  of  the  Methodist  movement 
among  the  Germans  and  show  how  when  the  German 
Methodist  leaders,  Martin  Boehme  and  Henry  Albright, 
arose,  they  found  much  people  in  that  place. 

It  is  said  that  Strawbridge  preached  at  Martin 
Boehme's.  In  Montgomery  County  Hans  Supplee  built 
a  church  which  he  called  Bethel  before  he  knew  of  "  the 
people  called  Methodists"  only  believing  that  ''the 
Lord  would  raise  up  a  people  in  that  neighborhood  to 
serve  him." 

The  first  Methodist  meeting-house  in  Philadelphia 
was  also  provided  through  the  agency  of  Germans, 
though  quite  involuntarily  on  their  part.  About  1763,  a 
number  of  Germans,  members  of  the  Reformed  con- 
gregation there,  began  to  build  a  church  and  were  not 
able  to  finish  it — indeed  some  of  them  were  imprisoned 
for  debt  contracted  in  connection  with  the  building. 
Looking  out  of  the  debtors'  prison,  passers-by  inquired 
for  what  they  were  imprisoned,  to  which  they  answered, 

102 


The  Methodists 

"For  building  a  church."  This  unusual  crime  became 
a  current  joke  in  the  city.  The  Methodists  bought  the 
edifice  from  these  unfortunate  promoters  of  church 
extension  and  called  it  "St.  George's  M.  E.  Church."  ^ 
A  work  which  in  its  final  development  became  con- 
nected with  Methodism  was  that  inaugurated  and 
developed  by  a  band  of  German  Reformed  ministers 
led  by  the  Rev.  William  Otterbein  of  Baltimore. 
Otterbein,  one  of  the  young  ministers  brought  over 
from  Germany  by  Schlatter  in  1742,  was  the  son  and 
grandson  of  Calvinistic  clergymen  ;  five  of  his  brothers 
were  in  the  service  of  that  church.  His  mother  had 
been  wont  to  say,  *T  think  my  William  will  be  a  mis- 
sionary, he  is  so  frank,  so  open,  so  natural,  so  like  a 
prophet,"  and  when  the  call  came  to  him  she  gave  him 
up  to  the  vocation,  with  prayers  and  tears.  Otterbein 
made  a  useful,  active,  and  beloved  minister  on  the 
frontier,  going  first  to  Lancaster,  then  evangelizing 
through  York  County,  then  at  Frederick  and  at  York, 
at  all  of  which  places  he  labored  with  much  acceptance 
until  reluctantly  constrained  to  leave  New  York  and 
assume  the  pastorship  of  the  divided  and  distracted 
German    Reformed    church    at    Baltimore.     There    an 

1 A  whimsical  anecdote  is  told  of  one  of  the  earliest  German  Methodists 
in  Chester  County,  George  Hoffman  by  name.  While  at  his  devotions  he 
was  interrupted  by  a  knocking  over  his  head  and  an  unearthly  voice  which 
seemed  to  call  thrice,  '*  Yorick  !  Yorick  !  Yorick  !  "  (the  Pennsylvania  Ger- 
man form  of  Jorg-George,  his  Christian  name).  Nothing  doubting  that 
this  was  a  heavenly  messenger,  he  cried  out,  "  I'll  go  with  you  as  soon  as 
I  put  on  my  new  buckskin  breeches."  Thus  apparelled  for  translation,  he 
rushed  into  the  yard  to  discover  that  the  summoning  angel  was  a  wood- 
pecker or  flicker,  tapping  and  calling  on  his  house-roof. 

103 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

unordained  man,  probably  an  elder  of  the  Reformed 
church,  Benedict  Schwob,  whose  approval  of  Straw- 
bridge's  measures  has  been  quoted,  had  attained  great 
popularity  in  his  ministrations,  insomuch  that  the  little 
congregation  thought  of  calling  him  in  place  of  their 
regular  minister.  The  disaffected  party  finally  retired 
and  were  ministered  to  by  Schwob,  who  was  presently 
ordained. 

A  year  or  two  afterward,  Francis  Asbury  came  to 
Baltimore,  preaching  the  doctrines  of  the  Methodists 
and  there  met  "Mr.  Swoop,  a  preacher  in  High  Dutch  ; 
he  appeared  to  be  a  good  man  and  I  opened  to  him 
the  plan  of  Methodism."  Subsequently  Asbury  met 
Otterbein  and  says  that  he  and  Schwob  "agreed  to 
imitate  our  method  as  nearly  as  possible."  They  there- 
fore organized  "  classes"  at  five  places  in  Maryland 
and  arranged  that  the  Reformed  ministers  in  that  State 
were  to  have  the  supervision  of  the  work  and  meet 
semi-annually  to  receive  reports. 

These  assemblings  were  no  new  nor  especially  Metho- 
distic  affairs ;  they  were  but  the  old  assemblings  for  edi- 
fication of  Spener,  of  Labadie,  of  Untereyck,  Lodenstein, 
Lampe  and  the  other  leaders  of  the  German  pietistic 
movement,  or  the  choir  meetings  of  Zinzendorf  and  the 
Moravians.  "The  ground  and  object  of  these  meetings," 
says  the  earliest  minutes,  "is  to  be  that  those  thus  united 
may  encourage  each  other,  pray  and  sing  in  unison,  and 
watch  over  each  other's  conduct.  At  these  meetings 
they  are  to  be  especially  careful  to  see  to  it  that  family 
worship  is  regularly  maintained;  all  those  who  are  thus 

104 


The    Methodists 

united  are  to  take  heed  that  no  disturbances  occur  among 
them  and  that  the  affairs  of  the  congregation  be  con- 
ducted and  managed  in  an  orderly  manner."^  They 
were  thus  no  separatistic  conventicles  which  the  '*  United 
Ministers,"  as  they  called  themselves,  inaugurated;  the 
unions  were  often  organized  by  some  ministers  thereto 
appointed  and  the  report  from  each  society — they  soon 
grew  to  be  twelve  in  number — always  states  that  they 
are  '*at  peace" — ** except,"  say  the  minutes  once,  "a 
little  trouble  at  Antietam  which  has  been  covered  up 
with  the  mantle  of  charity,"  they  are  ''prosperous  and 
serious,"  "prosperous  and  at  peace;"  "the  friends  at 
Little  Pipe  Creek  are  at  perfect  peace  and  we  trust  enjoy 
a  blessing."  "The  friends  in  Baltimore  are  prosperous 
and  meet  as  formerly.  The  congregation  has,  however, 
been  considerably  weakened  by  disturbances  caused  by 
the  war."  This  entry  in  the  last  minutes  of  the  United 
Ministers  in  1776,  shows  why  this  promising  way  of  sup- 
plying the  vacant  churches  of  Maryland  ceased  for  a 
time,  and  when  it  was  again  resumed,  came  under  the 
influence  of  Asbury,  ^  to  become  a  body  separated  from 
the  German  Reformed  church  and  connected  with  the 
Methodists  under  the  name  of  the  "  United  Brethren  in 

'  See  the  minutes  translated  and  republished  by  Dr.  Dubbs.  (Reformed 
Quarterly  Review,  January,  1884.) 

^  A  strong  personal  friendship  subsisted  between  Asbury  and  Otterbein  ; 
it  must  have  been  strong  indeed  since  it  survived  Otterbein's  frank  criticism 
of  Asbury' s  poetical  efforts.  The  Methodist  apostle  wrote  some  religious 
verse  which  he  showed  his  German  brother  before  publishing,  asking  his 
opinion  of  it,  to  which  Otterbein  replied,  "  Brother  Asbuiy,  I  don't  think 
you  was  born  a  poet,"  and  the  pious  effusions  were  therefore  unprinted. 

105 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

Christ."  Between  Otterbein's  work  and  the  formation 
of  the  United  Brethren  comes  the  great  gulf  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  changing  the  political  relations  of 
Americans  not  more  than  it  did  their  religious  and 
ecclesiastical  ones. 

Note: — Sources  for  the  preceding  section  are  Whitefield's  "Journal," 
(London,  1739,  5th  edition);  Seward's  "Journal,"  (London,  1740);  Gil- 
lies :  "  Life  of  Whitefield,"  (N.  Y. ,  1774)  ;  J.  and  C.  Wesley  :  "  Plymns 
and  Sacred  Poems,"  (Philadelphia,  Andrew  Bradford,  1740).  Also  Julian's 
"Dictionary  of  Hymnology,"  and  the  personal  assistance  of  Dr.  Louis 
F.  Benson,  editor  of  the  Presbyterian  Hymnal  ;  Diffenderfer :  "  German 
Exodus  of  1709,"  (Transactions  of  the  Pennsylvania-German  Society,  Vol. 
VII,  Lancaster,  1897).  Stevens  :  "History  of  Methodism,"  (N.  Y.,  1864) 
Lednum,  John  ;  ' '  History  of  the  Rise  of  Methodism  in  America, ' '  (Phila- 
delphia, 1859).  Kuhns  :  "German  and  Swiss  Settlements  in  Colonial 
Pennsylvania,"  (N.  Y.,  1901);  American  Church  History  Series,  Vol.  XII, 
Berger  :  *' History  of  the  United  Brethren,"  (apparently  written  without 
knowledge  of  German  or  of  the  German  Reformed  sources)  and  Spreng  : 
"  History  of  Evangelical  Association,"  (N,  Y.,  1894).  See  alsoHarbaugh: 
"Fathers  of  the  Reformed  Church,"  (Lancaster,  1872),  Vol.  II,  sketch  of 
Otterbein  ;  also  the  histories  of  the  Reformed  Church  by  Good  and  Dubbs, 
and  especially  Dubbs  :  '  *  Otterbein  and  the  Reformed  Church, ' '  published 
in  Reformed  Quarterly  Review,  January,  1884  ;  also  in  pamphlet  form,  and 
the  main  facts  incorporated  in  Dr.  Dubbs'  "  Historic  Manual  of  the  Re- 
formed Church,"  previously  cited. 


106 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE  GERMAN  CHURCHES  DURING  THE  REVOLUTION 

The  influence  of  the  Revolutionary  War  upon 
German  religious  life  was  very  different  in  respect  to 
the  peace  sects  and  the  church  people.  The  non- 
resistant  sects,  Mennonites,  Dunkers,  Schwenkfelders, 
and  the  Moravians,  who  are  otherwise  commonly 
classed  as  church  people,  were  all  much  harassed  by 
the  Test  Act  requiring  them  to  take  an  oath,  which  was 
against  their  principles,  and  punishing  with  heavy  fines 
their  refusal  to  join  the  militia.  Undoubtedly  these 
measures  were  frequently  used  as  the  cloak  of  a  private 
hostility  ;  and  there  was  also  suspicion  that  these  people 
who  would  not  fight  would  yet  plot  secretly  and  were, 
indeed,  disguising  Toryism  under  the  garb  of  peace 
principles  ;  but  this  suspicion  was  in  most  instances 
groundless,  though,  of  course,  Tories  did  exist  among 
the  sects  as  among  the  church  people.  They  were 
never  numerous  in  any  German  denomination — the 
Teutonic  element,  religious  or  non-religious,  being,  as 
Bancroft  says,  ''on  the  side  of  Liberty."  The  care 
given  by  them  to  wounded  soldiers  went  far  towards 
producing  a  favorable  opinion  of  the  non-resistants. 
Those  communities  which  possessed  large  buildings 
suitable  for  hospital  purposes — such  cLS  Ephrata,  Beth- 

107 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

lehem,  and  Salem  in  North  Carolina — had  the  best 
opportunity  to  display  such  charity. 

Many  of  the  younger  members  of  the  peace  sects 
went  into  the  army,  naturally  sacrificing  their  church 
connection  in  so  doing ;  thus,  early  in  the  war,  the 
Lutheran  pastor  Helmuth  reported  that  many  Menno- 
nites  were  drilling  and  '*in  great  numbers  are  denying 
their  former  reHgious  principles."  Saur's  paper  also 
told  of  young  Mennonites  in  Lancaster  County  who 
were  taking  up  arms  ;  and  many  of  the  younger 
Moravians  disdained  to  make  use  of  the  exemption 
afforded  those  in  the  church  settlements  who  were  con- 
sidered and  treated  as  clergymen,  and  drilled  with  the 
rest.  In  the  Saucon  Valley  a  constable  who  had  made 
it  his  business  to  worry  non-resistant  Mennonites,  after- 
wards transferred  his  attention  to  the  Moravians  around 
Bethlehem.  Two  Mennonites,  John  Bear  and  his  wife, 
volunteered  to  nurse  the  soldiers  during  the  fearful  out- 
break of  typhus  in  the  Ephrata  hospital ;  in  a  few  weeks 
John  Bear  fell  a  victim  to  his  Christian  charity  and  a 
fortnight  later  his  wife  followed  him  to  the  grave — both 
unknown  and  unhonored  martyrs  to  patriotism  and 
religion. 

The  most  prominent  victim  of  the  Test  Act  persecu- 
tion among  the  German  non-resistants  was  Christopher 
Saur,  Jr.,  the  Dunker  preacher  and  printer.  In  his  own 
manuscript  account  of  his  sufferings  because  *'he  was 
not  free  to  take  the  oath  to  the  States,"  he  tells  how  on 
returning  to  Germantown  after  taking  refuge  with  his 
(Tory)  children  in  Philadelphia,  he  was  seized,  stripped 

io8 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

and  treated  with  contemptuous  cruelty  until  ''  God 
moved  the  heart  of  the  most  generous  General  Muhlen- 
berg to  come  to  me."  Muhlenberg  procured  Saur  a 
pass  to  go  to  Metachton,  which  was  indeed  generous,  as 
Saur  and  his  father  before  him  had  unsparingly  abused 
Muhlenberg's  father,  *'the  Patriarch"  of  the  Lutheran 
church.  Subsequently  Saur's  property  in  Germantown 
was  sold,  on  suspicion  that  he  had  gone  to  Philadelphia 
to  give  information  to  the  Tories,  and  because  Saur,  as 
a  consistent  Dunker,  declined  the  Test  Oath.  ''Were 
you  so  attached  to  the  King?  "  they  asked  him.  ''No," 
answered  Saur,  "it  was  not  attachment  to  the  King  ; 
but  as  you  have  in  your  act  that  they  that  do  not  take 
that  oath  shall  not  have  a  right  to  buy  nor  sell,  and  as  I 
find  in  the  book  of  Revelations  that  such  a  time  will 
come  when  such  a  mark  would  be  given,  so  I  could  not 
take  that  oath  while  it  stood  on  that  condition."  "But 
you  went  to  the  English  in  Philadelphia,"  said  an 
officer.  "Do  you  know  why?"  asked  Saur.  "No," 
said  the  officer,  "nor  do  I  want  to  know."  They  took 
everything,  even  his  medicines,  of  which  he  protested 
that  none  but  he  knew  the  use.  "Then  I  beg'd  for 
nothing  more  except  my  spectacles,  which  was 
granted." 

Saur,  thus  reduced  from  prosperity  and  honor  to 
poverty  and  contempt,  found  refuge  in  a  little  room  in 
the  upper  story  of  a  spring-house  at  a  neighboring 
farm.  His  devoted  daughter  Catherine  went  with  him 
— his  wife  having  died  shortly  before — and  ministered 
to  her  father  for  the  few  remaining  years  of  his  life. 

109 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

Various  Brethren  and  friends  sent  money  to  relieve  the 
necessities  of  this  martyr  to  his  principles ;  sums  in 
''dollars,  congress"  and  guineas,  with  tea,  coffee,  sugar 
— are  carefully  recorded  in  Saur's  diary  with  the  note  : 
"  all  of  which  I  promise  honorably  to  repay  as  soon  as 
God  places  me  in  condition  to  do  so  *  *  *  and  I 
have  trust  in  God  that  He  will  richly  reward  what  I 
am  not  able  to  restore;"  but  in  his  last  days  he  was  en- 
abled to  write,  tremulously,  in  that  old  diary:  "The 
above  has  all  been  paid."  On  the  birthday  next  fol- 
lowing his  impoverishment,  Christopher  Saur  wrote  a 
hymn,  an  acrostic  on  his  name,  the  first  verse  of  which 
runs  : 

Christians  here  must  suit  themselves 
To  the  Cross's  narrow  path, 
Here  by  patience  and  by  stooping 
We  must  rise  to  heaven-heights  ; 
He  who  hopes  with  Christ  to  dwell 
Must  the  cross  remember  well. 
Those  who  there  will  be  rewarded 
Crowns  of  thorns  here  too  will  carry.  ^ 

To  the  Spoiling  of  his  goods  Saur  made  little  protest ; 
but  the  taking  away  of  his  good  name  he  felt  bitterly. 
He  inquired  of  the  Brethren's  Annual  Meeting  whether 
they  thought  it  inconsistent  with  their  principles  of  non- 
resistance  to  evil  to  make  some  effort  for  the  recovery  of 
his  reputation  :  "  If  a  man  is  openly  declared  a  traitor 
without  a  cause,  without  a  trial,  *  *  *  is  it  just  to 
him  let  lie  forever  under  that  reproach?  " 

^This  hymn  and  Saur's  own  account  of  his  sufferings,  are  translated  in 
Brumbaugh's  History  of  the  Brethren,  pp.  415,  et.  seq. 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

By  the  time  of  the  Revolution  the  numbers  of  the 
Ephrata  community  of  Dunkers  had  so  declined  that  it 
was  a  negligible  quantity  to  the  military  authorities ;  but 
it  was  in  possession  of  large  buildings  which  could  be 
used  for  hospitals,  and  after  the  battle  of  the  Brandy- 
wine  the  authorities  took  the  convent  buildings  Kedar 
and  Zion  for  that  purpose.  About  five  hundred  soldiers, 
some  wounded  in  the  battle,  some  suffering  from  typhus 
fever,  were  sent  to  Ephrata,  and  few  indeed  were  sent 
away.  The  mortality,  especially  from  the  fever,  was 
fearful.  We  have  told  of  the  self-devotion  of  the  Men- 
nonite  John  Bear  and  his  wife  :  Brother  Joannes  Anguas 
of  the  Cloister  took  into  one  of  the  community's  houses 
a  young  surgeon  mortally  ill  with  the  fever,  nursed  him 
until  his  death,  contracted  the  fever  from  his  patient,  and 
died  of  it.  Ten  of  the  brethren  and  sisters  died  during 
the  hospital  occupation  of  the  Cloister,  though  it  is  by 
no  means  certain  that  all  sacrificed  their  lives  in  nursing, 
as  did  Brother  Joannes ;  all  the  community,  however, 
helped  in  the  care  of  the  sick.  Everything  which  could 
be  of  use  in  hospital  or  the  army  in  the  field  was  taken 
for  the  purpose — grain,  blankets  and  quilts  from  the  Sis- 
ters' House,  paper  for  cartridges,  even  to  the  prayer  and 
hymn-books  in  the  '*Saal,"  as  the  Ephrata  Community, 
with  determined  separatism  called  the  church  building 
of  their  Cloister.  The  buildings  used  as  hospitals  were, 
it  is  said,  destroyed  because  of  their  infected  state.  Of 
the  eight  hundred  soldiers  brought  there,  two  hundred 
died  and  were  buried  in  the  secular  graveyards.  For 
many  years   the   only  memorial  to  these  patriots   and 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

martyrs  was  the  inscription  on  the  picket  fence  surround- 
ing a  brambly  enclosure:  ''Hier  ruhen  die  Gebeine 
vieler  Soldaten;"  but  of  late  years  a  suitable  shaft  has 
been  erected.  Other  property  of  the  Society  was 
sequestrated  to  keep  it  from  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
British.  Continental  soldiers  took  away  the  unbound 
sheets  of  part  of  the  great  Martyr-Book,  the  brethren 
deciding  that  they  could  not  give  the  paper  to  be  used 
in  war;  but  they  would  not  resist  force;  so  a  guard  of 
soldiers  was  sent  who  removed  the  property  and  thus 
saved  the  consciences  of  the  non-resistant  brotherhood. 
Their  press  was  taken  and  put  to  the  base  use  of  printing 
Continental  currency  during  Howe's  occupation  of 
Philadelphia. 

It  is  said  that  the  learned  prior,  Peter  Miller,  translated 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  into  seven  foreign 
languages.  Probably  he  was  the  only  person  in  the 
colonies  who  could  have  done  it,  but  the  evidence  that 
he  actually  did  so  is  not  conclusive.  Neither  is  that  for 
the  oft-told  stock  of  Miller's  Christian  charity  in  saving 
from  the  gallows  as  a  Tory  spy,  Michael  Widman,  a 
bigoted  Reformed  elder  in  Miller's  old  church,  who 
abused,  vilified,  and  even  spat  upon  ''Brother  Jaebez" 
after  he  entered  the  Cloister.  When  Miller  learned  of 
his  former  enemy's  peril  he  is  said  to  have  appealed  to 
Washington's  clemency.  Washington  deplored  his  ina- 
bihty  to  help  the  prior's  "friend;"  whereupon  Miller 
explained  that  it  was  in  reality  not  his  friend  but  his  bit- 
terest enemy  for  whom  he  interceded.  Washington, 
touched   by   Miller's   forgiving  nature,   gave  Widman's 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

pardon  into  his  hands,  and  Brother  Jaebez  walked  twenty 
miles,  from  Valley  Forge  to  the  place  where  the  execu- 
tion was  to  take  place,  arriving  just  as  the  sentence  was 
to  be  carried  out.  Widman,  seeing  Miller  in  the  crowd, 
begged  time  of  the  officer  to  ask  forgiveness  of  ''the 
man  he  had  most  deeply  wronged,"  and  learned  that  this 
man  was  the  bearer  of  his  pardon/ 

The  tiny  sect  of  Schwenkfelders  might  have  seemed 
small  enough  to  escape  harassment  on  account  of  their 
conscience  against  war  and  oaths,  yet  they  did  not.  At 
the  first  stirrings  of  patriotic  feeling,  Christopher  Schultz, 
their  most  important  leader,  was  on  the  Committee  of 
Observation  for  his  country,  and  he  with  another 
Schwenkfelder  went  as  delegates  to  the  provincial  con- 
vention of  1775.  At  a  meeting  of  various  conscientious 
non-resistants  at  Reading  in  the  same  year,  Reeser,  an 
intimate  friend  of  Schultz,  said  that  they  "were  fully 
sensible  of  the  justice  of  our  cause  and  willing  to  con- 
tribute to  its  support."  The  sect  observed  the  day  of 
prayer  appointed  by  Congress  in  1776 ;  Schultz  conducted 
the  services,  reading  Leviticus  XVI  and  preaching  from 
the  text,  ''Shall  there  be  evil  in  the  city  and  the  Lord 
hath  not  done  it?"  But  they  also  suffered  persecution 
under  the  Test  Act.  George  Kriebel  was  imprisoned  for 
a  time  in  Easton  on  charges  preferred  by  his  neighbors, 
and  in  his  old  age  he  remembered  how  on  Memorial  Day 
of  that  year  they  held  but  a  half-day's  services.      "We 

^The  story  in  the  form  later  given  to  it  may  be  found  in  Sachse's  "  Sec- 
tarians" and  also  in  Walton  and  Brumbaugh's  "Stories  of  Pennsylvania." 
It  seems  probable  that  it  was,  at  least,  founded  on  fact,  and  shows  what  was 
the  common  opinion  of  Miller's  character. 
8  113 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

were  uneasy  about  our  families  because  in  some  cases 
wife  and  children,  or  even  only  the  children,  were  at 
home ;  we  considered  it  therefore  advisable  to  dismiss  at 
noon  and  return  to  our  homes."  It  is  believed  that 
none  in  connection  with  the  Schwenkfelder  society  took 
up  arm.s.  Christopher  Schultz  wrote  in  1777  to  Ger- 
many: **0n  account  of  war  all  things  go  wrong;  the 
demands,  injunctions  and  forcible  extortions  can  scarcely 
be  told  which  continually  plague  those  who  do  not 
blow  the  horn  of  the  war  party.  In  spite  of  all  this 
we  have  not  allowed  ourselves  to  be  forced  into  the 
war. ' ' 

The  experiences  of  the  Bethlehem  Moravians  during 
the  Revolution  are  known  to  us  in  more  detail  than  those 
of  any  other  non-resistants.  The  geographic  situation  of 
Bethlehem  made  it  convenient  as  hospital,  refuge  and 
prison,  and  these  experiences,  however  trying  at  the 
time,  brought  the  inhabitants  of  the  ''church  settlement" 
in  contact  with  many  interesting  persons  and  events. 
Moreover,  the  Moravian  practice  of  keeping  a  ''Diary" 
or  history  of  a  church  settlement  and  its  various  interests 
and  happenings,  has  preserved  to  us  records,  always 
contemporary  and  often  vivid,  of  many  men  and  things. 

The  Moravians  had  the  same  troubles  with  the  Test 
Acts  and  with  militia  service,  from  the  suspicions  of  ill- 
disposed  neighbors  of  the  unneighborly  sort  whose  com- 
plaints had  led  to  the  imprisonment  of  Kriebel  the 
Schwenkfelder,  just  mentioned.  The  society,  along  with 
other  non-resistants,  paid  the  heavy  fines  levied  on  mem- 
bers who  would  not  drill.      Franklin  interfered  to  pre- 

114 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

vent  their  suffering  for  their  principles,  as  a  kindly  letter 
from  the  sage  to  Bishop  Seidel  evinces. 

Presently  troops  began  to  pass  through  on  their  way 
to  the  seat  of  war; — first  the  York  County  riflemen, 
pioneers  in  fringed  hunting  shirts  marching  "the  nearest 
way"  to  the  rehef  of  Boston.  Some  of  the  officers 
stayed  over  a  night  and  attended  evening  service. 
Troops  often  asked  to  have  sermons  preached  to  them, 
sometimes  saying  it  might  be  their  last  opportunity  in 
life  to  hear  the  gospel.  Morgan's  riflemen  came  through 
from  Virginia,  and  among  those  sharpshooters,  as  with 
the  York  County  men  mentioned  above,  were  many 
Germans,  the  serious  ones  among  whom  must  have  en- 
joyed services  in  their  native  tongue.  Next  came  a 
forlorn  band  of  British  prisoners,  and  following  them 
and  even  more  forlorn,  their  families  in  sleighs,  it  being 
the  depth  of  winter ; — to  these  poor  shivering  folk  the 
good  Moravians  gave  a  donation  of  blankets.  When 
the  summer  of  1776  brought  around  the  fateful  day  of 
July  4th,  ''Brother  Nathanael "  (Bishop  Seidel)  ex- 
horted his  brethren  "to  remember  the  situation  of 
things  before  the  Lord." 

But  later  in  that  same  year  came  the  first  test  of  the 
Unity's  readiness  to  give  such  help  as  they  conscien- 
tiously could,  when  the  hospital  of  the  Continentals  was 
moved  there,  the  Brethrens'  House  being  taken  therefor, 
and  the  brethren  exhorted  to  "act  on  this  occasion  as 
becomes  men  and  Christians."^ 

1  It  was  announced  by  the  following  letter  from  the  Director  General  of 
the  Continental  Hospitals:     **  It  gives  me  pain  to  be  obliged  by  order  of 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

About  two  hundred  and  fifty  soldiers  were  brought  to 
Bethlehem,  cases  which  could  the  least  bear  movement ; 
an  equal  number  were  taken  on  to  Easton  and  Allentown, 
but  this  was  too  far  for  some  poor  fellows — two  soldiers 
died  in  the  wagons  which  brought  them.  Bishop  Ettwein 
officiated  as  hospital  chaplain,  visiting  and  comforting 
the  sick  and  buiying  the  dead  ;  while  the  carpenters  of 
the  settlement  made  the  coffins  for  those  who  died. 

At  the  same  time  the  Moravians  of  other  settlements 
had  been  harassed  about  the  Test  Oath  and  mihtia  acts, 
or  were  having  hospitals  and  prisons  placed  in  their 
church  buildings.  Thus,  at  Emmaus  twenty-five  mem- 
bers of  the  congregation  were  imprisoned  for  a  month, 
and  kept  on  bread  and  water,  for  refusing  to  take  the  oath. 

At  Hebron,  near  Lebanon,  a  church  settlement  had 
been  projected,  but  only  a  chapel  was  built  with  a  par- 
sonage or  residence  for  the  minister  in  the  lower  story. 
In  1777  this  was  occupied  by  Brother  Bader  and  his 
wife,  who  were  greatly  surprised  and  distressed  by  hav- 
ing the  chapel  confiscated  to  the  use  of  several  hundred 
captured  Hessians  taken  at  Trenton.  These  men  were 
accompanied  by  women  who  sold  liquor  to  them  ;  they 
took  the  church  bass-viol  and  danced  to  its  music,  disre- 
garding alike  the  rebukes  of  the  pastor  and  of  their 
officers;  presently  when  they  left.   Brother  Bader    dis- 

Congress  to  send  my  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  to  your  peaceable  village — 
but  so  it  is.  Your  large  buildings  must  be  appropriated  to  their  use.  We 
will  want  room  for  two  thousand  at  Bethlehem,  Easton,  Allentown,  etc. 
These  are  dreadful  times,  consequences  of  unnatural  wars." 

[Signed.  ]  "  W.  Shippen. ' ' 

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The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

gustedly  remarked,  ''the  chapel  looks  like  a  pig  sty." 
Later  powder  and  munitions  of  war  were  stored  in  the 
chapel  to  the  great  terror  of  the  pastor.  But  when  a 
party  of  officers  came  to  inspect  the  improvised  arsenal, 
Brother  Bader  played  for  them  on  the  organ ;  and  the 
charms  of  the  music  apparently  so  soothed  their  savage 
breasts  that  the  explosives  were  removed  and  the  chapel 
restored  to  its  former  peaceful  use.^ 

At  Lititz  a  hospital  was  established  in  those  dark  days 
of  the  winter  of  Valley  Forge  ;  there  also  ''putrid  fever" 
desolated  the  wards.  Of  two  hundred  and  sixty-four 
patients,  one  hundred  and  twenty  died,  and  their  very 
burial  place  is  to  this  day  unknown.  Of  the  Moravians 
who  volunteered  to  help  in  the  hospitals,  five  brethren 
caught  the  fever  and  died,  among  them  Pastor  Schmick, 
who  having  sometime  before  entered  the  service  of 
his  beloved  Indian  congregation  at  Gnadenhiitten,  in  an 
alarm  had  been  sent  by  the  frightened  Indian  assistants 
back  to  Bethlehem,  and  thus  met  his  death  in  a  work 
of  mercy  at  peaceful  Lititz.  At  length  in  August,  1778, 
the  diary  of  the  settlement  records :  "We  are  devoutly 
thankful  that  the  heavy  burden  of  the  hospital  in  our 
midst  has  been  removed,  and  we  certainly  find  it  de- 
lightful to  enjoy  again  our  former  peaceful  life." 

^  Extracts  from  Records  of  Moravian  Congregation  at  Hebron,  Pennsyl- 
vania, 1775-81,  republished  in  Pennsylvania  Magazine,  Vol.  XVIII,  pp. 
449,  et  seq. ,  Philadelphia,  1904.  During  the  occupation  of  the  Hebron 
chapel,  the  officers  of  this  regiment  invited  Bader  to  a  Fourth  of  July 
celebration, adding,  "The  Rev.  Mr.  Bucher  [their chaplain]  would  likewise 
be  glad  of  your  agreeable  company,"  but  the  Moravian  declined. 

2 Cited  in  Jordan  :     *'  Military  Hospitals." 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

After  this  hospital  occupation  of  Bethlehem  was  over, 
came  streams  of  refugees ;  passing  troops  who  usually 
behaved  well,  frequently  attending  church  services ;  then 
prisoners,  among  them  the  soldier-preacher,  Captain 
Webb,  whom  we  have  seen  before  as  Philip  Em- 
bury's helper.  He  resided  in  Bethlehem  some  time 
with  his  family  as  a  prisoner  on  parole,  and  during  this 
residence  ministered  to  any  soldiers  who  chanced  to  be 
there. 

The  Liberty  Bell  was  brought  through  the  town 
under  guard  of  Mickly,  who  took  it  to  Allentown  and 
secreted  it  under  the  floor  of  the  German  Reformed 
Church;  the  wagon  bearing  the  bell  broke  down  in 
''the  square"  and  many  went  to  gaze  upon  what  was 
even  then  a  beloved  object.  But  after  the  battle  of 
Brandywine  Bethlehem  was  a  second  time  turned  into  a 
place  of  hospitals.  Like  Ephrata  at  the  same  epoch, 
and  like  the  other  community,  it  then  experienced  all 
the  horrors  of  a  typhus  epidemic,  the  mortality  being 
as  fearful  as  at  the  Zion  cloister,  with  the  addition  that 
there  were  many  times  more  patients.  No  one  ever 
will  know  the  number  of  the  dead,  save  that  it  exceeded 
a  thousand  ;  they  were  buried  secretly,  without  services, 
without  coffins,  their  names  unrecorded,  the  bodies 
carried  away  in  carts  through  the  dusk  of  the  winter 
mornings.  Some  of  the  surgeons  and  soldiers  who  died 
were  buried  in  the  church  graveyard;  the  "Stranger's 
Row"  was  first  opened  in  that  time  of  pestilence. 
Bishop  Ettwein's  son  John,  a  youth  of  nineteen,  minis- 
tering  in    the   hospitals,    caught  the   plague  and   died. 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

The  hospitals  were  not  finally  removed  until  the  spring 
of  the  year  1778. 

One  of  the  distinguished  patients  nursed  at  Bethle- 
hem was  the  Marquis  La  Fayette,  who  was  brought 
there  wounded  at  the  Brandywine,  and  nursed  at  the 
house  of  Brother  Boeckel  by  his  wife  Barbara  and  his 
daughter  Liesel,  and  well  nursed  it  appears,  for  he 
recovered  sufficiently  to  leave  before  the  typhus  epi- 
demic broke  out.  During  La  Fayette's  illness,  another 
foreign  nobleman  and  volunteer  for  the  cause  of  Ameri- 
can freedom  came  to  visit  him — Pulaski.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  Pulaski  procured  the  banner  to  which  Long- 
fellow's poem  refers,  and  which  was  probably  ordered 
and  paid  for  in  a  purely  business  way  from  the  Sisters 
who  did  much  beautiful  embroidery  and  who  were  not 
''nuns"  any  more  than  the  little  "Old  Chapel"  con- 
tained a  "dim  mysterious  aisle  ;"  but  the  poem  was  the 
production  of  an  eighteen-year-old  boy  for  whom  better 
excuse  can  be  made  than  for  certain  older  describers  of 
Bethlehem  who  are  even  more  wildly  imaginative. 

The  next  representatives  of  foreign  nobility  to  whom 
the  Moravians  were  asked  to  extend  their  kindness, 
were  the  Baron  and  Baroness  Riedesel  and  their  family. 
Other  prisoners  of  war  and  officers  of  the  Brunswick 
regiment  of  foreign  mercenaries  stayed  in  Bethlehem 
for  some  time,  passing  Holy  Week  there,  at  which  time 
they  partook  of  communion  with  the  congregation. 
Their  chaplain  added  to  the  ties  between  them  and  the 
townsfolk  by  his  marriage  to  a  Bethlehem  girl. 
Scarcely   had   the   Brunswick   chaplain   and  his  Agnes 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

departed  when  the  town  was  flattered  and  delighted  by 
a  sudden  visit  from  "Lady  Washington;"  her  august 
husband  himself  came  later  in  the  summer  of  1782, 
and  in  his  stately  way  showed  himself  very  gracious. 
Then  followed  soldiers  and  sailors  ;  Ziegler,  who  had 
met  some  of  the  European  brethren  at  St.  Petersburg 
while  he  was  in  the  Russian  service,  and  John  Paul 
Jones,  who  spent  some  time  in  the  settlement. 

In  all  the  annoyances  and  worries  of  these  troubled 
battle  years  it  must  have  been  a  great  comfort  to  the 
Brethren  to  have  the  help  of  Bishop  Reichel,  sent  over 
from  the  conference  of  the  Unity  at  Herrnhut  to  assist 
the  aged  **  Brother  Nathanael."  He  remained  for  two 
years,  but  unfortunately  had  left  before  the  terrible  news 
of  the  massacre  of  the  Indian  converts  at  Gnadenhiitten 
in  Ohio,  killed  by  report  the  old  Bishop  Seidel  who 
had  been  instrumental  in  founding  this  settlement  and 
removing  thither  the  converts  from  their  first  town  on 
the  banks  of  Beaver  creek. 

Thence,  invited  by  the  wild  Indians,  they  had  gone 
under  the  advice  and  conduct  of  their  devoted  mission- 
aries, Zeisberger  and  Heckewelder,  to  the  banks  of  the 
Muskingum  where  more  than  two  hundred  Indian  con- 
verts from  the  Moravian  missions  of  eastern  Pennsyl- 
vania joined  them,  crossing  the  Alleghenies  in  a  great 
cavalcade,  descending  the  Ohio  by  means  of  canoes 
which  they  built,  and  so  increasing  the  settlement  on 
the  Muskingum  that  there  were  presently  three  towns  : 
Salem,  Schoenbrunn  and  Gnadenhiitten — ''a  candlestick 
in    the    Delaware    country."     The  pioneers    hated   the 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

Indian  converts  and  suspected  them  of  Toryism  ;  the 
British  at  Detroit,  on  the  other  hand,  thought  **  they 
took  the  American  part,"  and  that  the  missionaries  were 
spies.  Toward  the  end  of  the  Revolution,  the  whole 
community  were  captured  and  taken  to  Sandusky 
Creek,  where  they  settled  and  where  they  **so  much 
disliked  the  situation  that  they  gave  the  town  no  name." 
Famine  afflicted  the  exiles  ;  their  beloved  missionaries 
were  torn  from  them  to  go  into  captivity  at  Detroit ;  so 
the  Indians  sent  an  expedition  south  to  their  old 
villages  in  order  '*  to  fetch  provisions,  a  report  prevail- 
ing that  there  was  no  danger  in  these  parts." 

Never  was  a  report  more  unfounded.  Instantly  a 
party  of  white  militia  was  raised  on  the  Ohio  to  surprise 
the  Indians  at  Gnadenhiitten  ;  Gibson,  the  commandant 
at  Fort  Pitt,  sent  a  warning  but  it  was  too  late.  A 
chance  white  man  also  warned  them,  but  the  Indians 
were  not  afraid,  because  they  thought  there  was  "  nothing 
to  fear  from  the  Americans."  The  militia  first  encount- 
ered in  the  woods  young  Schebosch,  the  son  of  a  mis- 
sionary and  his  Indian  wife,  and  though  he  begged  for 
his  life,  saying  he  was  the  son  of  ''a  white  Christian 
man,"  they  cut  him  to  pieces  with  their  hatchets.  Ar- 
riving at  Gnadenhiitten  the  militia  assured  the  Indians 
of  their  sympathy,  saying  they  had  come  to  escort  them 
to  a  safe  refuge  at  Fort  Pitt;  the  Indians  delivered  up 
their  guns  and  arms,  showed  where  they  had  hidden 
provisions  in  the  woods,  and  "even  emptied  all  their 
bee-hives  for  their  pretended  friends."  The  frontiersmen 
expressed  a  desire  to  see  the  other  town  of  Salem,  and 

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German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

the  converts  took  them  thither,  having  religious  conver- 
sation by  the  way.  The  Salem  people  were  brought 
over  to  Gnadenhiitten  and  the  militia  then  threw  off  the 
masque  of  friendship,  disarmed  the  Salem  Indians  even 
to  their  pocket-knives,  thrust  all  their  prisoners  into  two 
cabins,  and  after  granting  them  time  to  prepare  for 
death,  killed  and  scalped  them  every  one,  ninety-two 
persons,  among  them  some  of  the  most  valuable  "Indian 
assistants"  or  native  missionaries;  one-third  of  the 
number,  however,  being  children.  The  militia-men  com- 
mented upon  the  Moravian  Indians'  behavior,  that  they 
must  have  been  good  people,  *'for,"  said  they,  *'they 
sang  and  prayed  to  their  latest  breath."  The  Schoen- 
brunn  people  were  saved  through  the  providential  dis- 
covery by  a  messenger  sent  to  them  from  Detroit,  ol 
young  Schebosch's  mangled  body  in  the  woods.  The 
Indians  of  Schoenbrunn  hid  themselves,  watched  the 
militia  plunder  their  houses  and  then  depart  with  the 
scalps  taken  at  Gnadenhiitten.  The  horses,  blankets  and 
other  plunder,  were  afterwards  exhibited  and  sold  at 
Fort  Pitt.  In  this  manner  was  Brother  Schebosch  first 
apprised  of  his  son's  death. 

After  this  story  of  martyrdom  and  suffering  it  seems 
an  anti-climax  to  speak  of  the  troubles  of  the  Moravians 
in  ''the  Wachovia  tract"  centering  about  Salem  in  North 
Carolina ;  troubles  brought  upon  the  community  mainly 
by  their  opposition  to  war  and  oaths.  They  were  finally 
overcome,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Northern  brethren,  by 
the  care  given  the  wounded  soldiers  who  were  brought 
to  Salem  for  nursing.      At  one  time,  however,  suspicion 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

of  these  pious  non-resistants'  loyalty  ran  so  high  that  it 
was  expected  that  the  Legislature  would  confiscate  their 
land;  the  people  of  Salem  made  preparation  to  leave 
their  homes,  the  surrounding  inhabitants  had  already 
selected  the  tracts  of  land  which  they  would  take  up  and 
filed  claims  for  them,  when  the  Legislature  decided  to 
permit  affirmation  in  place  of  the  oath  and  the  houses 
and  lands  of  Salem  were  saved.  Prisoners,  unruly  and 
plundering  militia,  wounded  men  and  high  officials  of 
the  provinces  passed  through  Salem  as  through  other 
Moravian  towns;  twice  the  Legislature  endeavored  to 
meet  there  but  could  not  get  a  quorum ;  at  length,  on 
July  4,  1783,  the  congregation  in  Salem  kept  a  peace 
jubilee,  with  '*a  psalm  of  joy"  written  for  the  occasion 
and  beginning  ''Peace  is  with  us!  peace  is  with  us!" 
which  doubtless  expressed  in  some  measure  their  joy 
and  relief 

In  the  story  of  the  Revolution  as  it  affected  the 
Lutheran  and  Reformed,  we  find  no  such  tales  of  non- 
resistants'  sufferings  for  conscience  sake  as  we  have  met 
among  the  ''peace  sects:"  the  church  people  not  only 
had  no  objection  to  fighting,  but  they  were,  many  of 
them,  very  fiery  and  militant  in  their  patriotism.  Many 
of  the  soldiers  of  the  Revolution  were  prominent  mem- 
bers of  either  denominations;  thus  Colonel  Antes,  the 
four  brothers  of  the  Hiester  family  who  entered  the  army, 
and  Michael  Hillegas,  the  treasurer  of  the  Continental 
Congress,  were  all  of  the  Reformed  church,  as  were 
Herkimer, — the  gallant  defender  of  the  Mohawk  valley, 
the  hero  of  Oriskany — and  General  Steuben,  who  was  an 

123 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

elder  in  the  German   Reformed  church  in  New  York 
City. 

The  great  body  of  the  clergy  stood  for  liberty ;  they 
preached  numerous  sermons  the  texts  of  which  consti- 
tute a  quaint  collection ;  some  went  into  the  army  as 
chaplains,  like  Michael  of  Lehigh  County,  and  John 
Conrad  Bucher,  who  had  been  a  soldier  before  he  was  a 
preacher  and  now  returned  to  the  army  as  a  chaplain  in 
Marsteller's  regiment.  Gobrecht  of  Hanover  preached 
to  companies  on  their  way  to  the  war ;  while  Weyberg 
of  Philadelphia  was  so  persuasive  in  his  patriotic  sermons 
that  it  was  said  that  had  the  British  not  imprisoned  him, 
all  the  Hessians  who  heard  him  would  have  left  the 
British  service.  During  Weyberg' s  imprisonment  the 
large,  fine  church  building  was  taken  for  a  hospital ;  his 
first  sermon  after  his  liberation  was  on  the  text,  *'0  God, 
the  heathen  are  entered  into  Thine  inheritance ;  Thy 
holy  temple  have  they  defiled."  The  Reformed  churches 
at  the  Trappe,  East  Vincent,  Skippack  and  Falkner's 
Swamp  were  also  taken  for  hospitals,  as  was  that  at 
Lebanon.  The  aged  Schlatter,  in  his  modest  cottage  at 
Chestnut  Hill,  was  plundered  and  taken  a  prisoner  to 
Philadelphia.  At  Guilford  in  South  Carolina,  Suther 
and  his  patriot  parishioners  were  driven  out  by  the  Tories 
of  the  congregation  and  their  possessions  plundered. 
Li  New  Jersey,  Nevelling,  a  cousin  of  the  eloquent 
pastor  Weyberg,  lent  all  his  money  to  the  Continental 
cause,  and  lost  it, — a  serious  matter  to  him  in  the  long 
years  of  invalidism  which  closed  his  life  when  he  was  old, 
blind  and  paralyzed.     Nevelling  was  so  valuable  to  the 

124 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

British  that  they  are  said  to  have  offered  a  reward  for 
his  apprehension,  and  so  valued  by  Washington  that  he 
sent  a  troop  of  horse  to  guard  him.  Faehring,  another 
Reformed  pastor  of  New  York  State  died  from  the  con- 
sequences of  exposure  endured  in  his  flight  from  the 
British.  Hendel  had  congregations  ** beyond  the  Blue 
mountains"  which  he  desired  to  serve  in  those  troublous 
times  despite  dangers  from  British  and  Indians,  so  his 
expectant  hearers  used  to  send  an  escort  to  meet  him, 
stand  guard  around  the  church  while  he  preached,  and 
then  accompany  him  home  across  the  mountains.  At 
the  Cacusi  church  near  Wernersville,  built  in  1766,  an 
inscription  over  the  door  announced  that  *'  all  who  go 
out  and  in  must  be  true  to  God  and^the  King ;  "  but  after 
the  war,  during  which  many  of  the  members  went  into 
the  Continental  army,  one  of  the  builders  climbed  up 
and  chiseled  out  the  word  ''king."  The  inscription  re- 
mains to  this  day  in  that  mutilated  condition.  Stahl- 
schmidt  left  his  congregation  at  New  York  because  it 
contained  some  Tories  who  would  not  have  a  patriotic 
minister.  Returning  to  Germany,  he  became  a  suc- 
cessor of  Tersteegen  in  leading  the  pietistic  party  in  the 
principality  of  Siegen,  and  his  influence  was  instrumental 
in  preserving  that  part  of  the  country  from  the  ration- 
alistic influences  which  threatened  at  one  time  to  blight 
the  church.  The  driving  out  of  Weber,  another  patriotic 
pastor  from  his  Eastern  Pennsylvania  charge,  wrought  an 
undesigned  good  work  also ;  for  Weber,  going  into  the 
wilds  of  Westmoreland  County,  became  the  pioneer  of 
Reformed  Home  Missions  in  that  region,   preaching  as 

125 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

far  as  Fort  Pitt  Runkel  ministered  to  the  soldiers  at 
Valley  Forge,  and  it  is  testified  of  him  that  **he  was  a 
devout  Christian  and  true  patriot,  one  of  the  hardest 
workers  in  the  cause  of  religion  and  his  presence  among 
Washington's  soldiers  was  always  attended  by  good  re- 
sults." His  ministrations  were  not  always  strictly  relig- 
ious, as  when  once  following  the  suffering  troops  on  the 
march,  he  found  a  soldier  whose  feet  were  so  cut  and 
bleeding  that  he  could  no  longer  march.  Runkel  picked 
him  up,  put  him  on  his  back  and  carried  him  to  Morris- 
town  where  he  had  friends.  The  energetic  and  helpful 
pastor  also  assisted  Baron  Steuben  in  drilling  the  troops, 
translating  the  German  officers'  commands  into  English 
to  Steuben's  great  satisfaction.^ 

Not  all  the  Reformed  ministers  were  so  ardently 
patriotic  as  these  just  mentioned,  and  of  those  who  did 
not  rise  to  the  height  of  the  occasion  the  greatest  name 
is  that  of  Zubly,  "the  most  eminent  Reformed  minister 
of  America."  John  Joachim  Zubly,  a  native  of  St. 
Gall  in  Switzerland,  member  of  a  family  of  influence 
and  position  there,  joined  his  father  at  Purysburg,  South 
Carolina,  while  a  young  man,  though  already  ordained 
and  a  **  boy  preacher  "  of  unusual  talents  and  promise. 
He  did  much  evangelistic  work  among  the  German 
settlements  of  the  Carolinas  and  Georgias,  ministering 
at  Frederica,  Orangeburg  and  Charleston  ;  thence  he 
was  called  to  an  important  church  in  Savannah,  com- 
posed of  Reformed,  Lutherans,  and  Catholics,  where  he 
officiated  with  great  success  and  acceptance,  preaching 

^Good  :     German  Reformed  Church  in  United  States,  p.  627,  foot  note. 

126 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

to  his  diverse  congregation  in  English,  German  and 
French.  Muhlenberg  who  visited  him  said,  •*  He  has 
a  larger  collection  of  fine  books  than  I  have  seen  else- 
where in  America."  Princeton  honored  him  with  the 
title  of  D.D.  He  was  a  near  friend  of  Whitefield  who 
called  him  "his  son  in  the  Lord,"  and  for  his  orphanage 
project,  Zubly  made  a  collecting  tour  through  the 
north,  which  had  as  a  personal  result  a  number  of  calls 
from  prominent  churches  there.  But  the  brilliant  Swiss 
preferred  to  dwell  among  his  own  people  who  loved  and 
honored  him,  and  who  sent  him  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Revolutionary  movement  to  Philadelphia  as  a  delegate 
to  the  Continental  Congress. 

Zubly  could  not  endure  the  thought  of  an  entire  sep- 
aration from  the  mother  country  ;  he  left  Philadelphia  a 
few  months  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  adopted  and  returned  to  Savannah,  where  he  found 
himself  now  hated,  proscribed,  and  exiled.  His  prop- 
erty was  confiscated,  first  by  the  patriots,  afterwards, 
during  their  occupation  of  the  city,  by  the  British,  who 
knew  no  more  of  him  than  that  he  had  been  a  **  rebel 
leader."  At  length  the  tide  turned  ;  he  was  recalled  to 
Savannah  by  his  people,  and  ministered  to  them  for  a 
few  years  ;  but  he  was  a  broken  man  and  died  before 
the  end  of  the  Revolution,  in  1781.  ''His  career  in 
Church  and  State  can  hardly  be  called  more  than  a 
brilliant  failure."  ' 

In  recfard  to  the  Lutherans'  attitude  toward  the  Rev- 
olution,  it  is  difficult  to  discriminate  between  them  and 

^Dubbs:  Reformed  Church  in  Pennsylvania,  p.  219. 

127 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

the  Reformed  and  tell  what  part  to  credit  to  the 
followers  of  Luther  specifically,  because  so  many 
people  made  use  of  the  services  of  either  denomination 
and  most  of  the  country  churches  were  **  union  "  ones, 
ministered  to  by  Lutheran  and  Reformed  on  different 
Sundays,  but  with  otherwise  little  distinction.  When, 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  the  German  church 
people  of  Philadelphia  desired  to  fire  the  patriotism  of 
the  Mohawk  Valley  and  the  southern  Germans,  the 
officials  of  both  Reformed  and  Lutheran  churches  joined 
with  the  officers  of  the  benevolent  **  German  Society  " 
in  the  ''Address  "  they  issued/ 

The  Lutheran  pastor  Helmuth,  of  Philadelphia,  has 
already  been  quoted ;  he  says  further  regarding  the 
state  of  feeling  in  that  city  in  1775  :  "Where  a  hundred 
men  are  desired  many  more  than  that  number  imme- 
diately appear,  who  then  because  they  are  not  all 
needed  are  turned  back  to  their  own  great  dissatisfac- 
tion. In  my  own  slight  acquaintance  with  history,  I 
know  of  no  parallel  state  of  affairs.  Regions  of  which 
one  was  obliged  to  believe  that  it  would  be  years  before 
the  people  freely  gave  themselves  to  martial  affairs,  as 
soon  as  the  news  of  the  first  clash  at  Lexington  was 
heard,  became  very  warlike  in  a  few  weeks.  *  *  * 
The  whole  land  from  New  England  to  Georgia  is  all  of 
one  mind  to  risk  body  and  fife  in  order  to  assert  its 
freedom.      The  few  who  think   otherwise  dare  not  speak 

1  Schreiben  des  Lutherischen  und  Reformirten  Kirchen-raths  an  die 
Teutschen  Einwohner,  etc.,  quoted  in  Seidensticker's  Bilder  and  summarized 
in  my  ' '  Germans  in  Colonial  Times, ' '  p.  240. 

128 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

otherwise.  *  *  *  In  Philadelphia  the  English  and 
German  pupils  in  the  schools  have  formed  soldier  com- 
panies and  are  drilled  like  regular  troops.  Would  God 
that  men  might  once  assert  their  spiritual  freedom  as 
zealously  and  unanimously  as  they  here  in  America 
rise  to  the  defense  of  their  bodily  freedom."  (Repub- 
lished in  Schmauk  ;  Lutheran  Church  in  Pennsylvania, 
PP-  335-36.) 

In  Charleston,  the  Lutheran  pastor,  Streit,  who  had 
served  as  chaplain  of  the  Third  Virginia  regiment,  was 
obliged  to  flee  from  the  city  when  the  British  took  pos- 
session. The  church  to  which  Streit  ministered,  St. 
John's,  was  so  patriotic  that  a  whole  company  of  Conti- 
nental troops,  the  *' German  Fusileers,"  was  formed  out 
of  members  of  his  congregation :  they  took  part  in  sev- 
eral engagements,  their  captain  being  killed  in  action  at 
Savannah.  Another  of  their  pastors,  Martin, — it  was  a 
collegiate  church — because  he  would  not  pray  for  the 
king,  had  his  property  confiscated  by  the  British  at  the 
taking  of  Charleston,  and  was  forced  to  flee  from  the  city. 
The  church  provided  itself  ad  interim  with  two  other 
ministers  "less  exceptionable  to  our  foreign  rulers,"  as 
they  said; — probably  more  willing  to  pray  for  King 
George.  In  Western  North  Carolina,  Nussmann's  con- 
gregations suffered  much  in  the  war,  losing  both  lives 
and  property  in  the  cause.  Nussmann's  coadjutor,  Arndt, 
was  obliged  to  remain  in  hiding  on  account  of  his 
patriotic  outspokenness.  At  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania,  the 
congregation  in  1780  called  the  Rev.  John  George 
Butler  (Bottler)  who,  before  he  entered  the  ministry,  had 
9  129 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

been  a  soldier  in  the  Continental  army,  serving  in  Vir- 
ginia. One  of  the  Ebenezer  pastors,  Rabenhorst,  had 
his  homestead  burnt  as  well  as  his  church  turned  into  a 
stable  by  the  invaders;  several  of  his  parishioners  were 
active  and  prominent  on  the  ''rebel "  side.  But  Triebner, 
the  other  pastor,  officiated  as  guide  to  the  British  force 
and  found  it  prudent  to  go  with  the  invaders  when  they 
left  South  Carohna.  So  did  a  Northern  clergyman, 
Hausihl,  who  accompanied  some  exiled  German  loyalists 
to  Nova  Scotia. 

The  best  known  of  all  the  German  patriots  of  the 
Revolution  is  probably  that  son  of  the  patriarch  Miihlen- 
berg,  who  so  dramatically  exchanged  the  Geneva  gown 
for  the  Continental  uniform,  in  the  Lutheran  church  of 
Woodstock  in  Virginia.  This  Peter  Miihlenberg  had 
already  undergone  some  military  experience,  for,  when 
sent  as  a  boy  to  Halle  for  his  education,  he  ran  away  and 
enlisted  in  a  dragoon  regiment,  where  a  British  officer 
recognized  him,  extricated  him  with  some  difficulty^, — 
enlistments  in  the  German  army  were  then  for  life; — 
and  brought  ''Peter  the  Devil,"  as  he  was  known  in  the 
ranks,  to  America  as  his  secretary.  Peter  now  com- 
pleted his  education  without  further  mishap,  was  ordained 
in  London  and  became  pastor  of  a  German  church  in 
the  Shenandoah  Valley.  There  Washington  learned  to 
know  and  value  him,  asking  him  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution  to  take  the  colonelcy  of  the  Eighth  Virginia 
Regiment.  In  January,  of  1776,  the  Reverend  Peter 
preached  at  Woodstock  from  the  third  chapter  of 
Ecclesiastes :   "To  eveiy  thing  there  is  a  season,  and  a 

130 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

time  to  every  purpose  under  the  heaven  :  *  ^=  *  a  time 
of  war  and  a  time  of  peace  :"  and  ended  his  sermon  with 
the  statement  that  *'in  the  language  of  Holy  Writ  there 
was  a  time  for  all  things — a  time  to  pray  and  a  time  to 
preach — but  those  times  have  passed  away;  there  is  a 
time  to  fight,  and  the  time  to  fight  is  here!"  Then  he 
prayed;  ''Hold  us  up,  O  Lord,  Lord  our  God,  that  we 
may  live;  and  let  our  hope  never  make  us  ashamed. 
Help  us  by  thy  might,  that  we  may  wax  strong;  and  so 
shall  we  ever  delight  ourselves  in  thy  statutes,"  gave  the 
benediction,^  removed  his  clerical  gown  and  showed  him- 
self attired  in  a  colonel's  uniform.  Three  hundred  men 
of  his  congregation  enlisted  under  him. 

He  fought  at  Sullivan's  Island,  was  made  a  Brigadier 
General,  and  at  Brandywine  his  troops  and  those  of 
Weedon  (the  German  Baron  von  der  Wieden)  bore  the 
brunt  of  the  action ;  here,  as  he  himself  used  to  tell,  some 
German  dragoons,  seeing  him  heading  a  charge,  recog- 
nized him  as  their  former  comrade,  and  cried  out  ''Here 
comes  Peter  the  Devil!"  At  Germantown  General 
Muhlenberg  had  a  narrow  escape.  A  British  officer 
seized  a  musket,  loaded  it  and  would  have  killed  him, 
had  not  the  General  drawn  his  pistol  and  shot  the  other 
dead.  He  fought  also  at  Monmouth  and  Stony  Point, 
served  under  Steuben  against  the  traitor  Arnold  in  Vir- 
ginia, and  finally  led  the  assault  at  Yorktown.  He  was 
made  a  Major  General  at  the  close  of  the  war,  when  he 

1  This  account  of  Peter  Muhlenberg's  last  sermon  is  pieced  together  from 
many  sources  ;  the  prayer  is  taken  from  the  manuscript  of  the  liturgy  which 
he  used,  in  his  own  handwriting. 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

removed  to  Pennsylvania.  He  never  re-entered  the 
ministry,  but  was  prominent  and  useful  in  civil  life. 

His  younger  brother,  Frederick  Augustus,  went  also 
to  Halle  for  education.  Finishing  his  course  there,  he 
was  ordained  and  became  pastor  of  a  Lutheran  church 
in  New  York  City,  his  piety,  fine  education,  eloquence 
and  polished  manners  fitting  him  well  for  a  metropolitan 
position.  But  he  proved  as  outspoken  in  his  patriotism 
as  the  rest  of  the  family,  and  when  the  British  took  pos- 
session of  New  York,  was  obliged  to  seek  refuge  in 
Philadelphia.  That  city  sent  him  as  a  delegate  to  the 
Continental  Congress,  and  afterwards  to  the  State  Legis- 
lature; he  also  filled  other  prominent  civil  positions. 
Like  his  brother,  the  General,  he  never  returned  to  the 
ministry. 

Ernest  Muhlenberg,  the  youngest  son  of  the  patriarch, 
continued  a  Lutheran  clergyman  all  his  life.  He  was  at 
Halle  with  his  brothers,  then  became  a  pastor  in  Phila- 
delphia, but  was  too  patriotic  to  find  a  stay  there  safe 
during  Howe's  occupation ; — taking  refuge  in  the  coun- 
try he  interested  himself  in  botany  and  mineralogy  and 
became  distinguished  in  their  pursuit.  He  was  a  pastor 
in  Lancaster  from  1780  until  his  death. 

These  chronicles  of  German  church  life  in  this  mo- 
mentous epoch  seem  mere  catalogues  of  names  and 
trifling  details,  but  it  is  only  in  this  way,  by  giving  the 
slight,  often  homely  events,  that  we  can  see  what  the 
Revolution  was  as  it  came  to  the  homes,  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  men.  From  these  scattered  remnants  of 
history,  we  may  picture  to  ourselves  the  many  nameless, 

132 


The  German  Churches  During  the  Revolution 

unknown  heroes  and  patriots  and  Christians  who  made 
our  country  ''free  and  independent."  In  this  great  task 
the  Germans,  pastors  and  people,  bore  a  large  and  hon- 
orable part. 

Note  : — The  history  of  German  religious  life  during  the  Revolution  is 
found  scattered  through  the  special  histories  before  cited :  Brumbaugh  : 
"  History  of  the  German  Baptist  Brethren  ;  "  Seidensticker  :  "  Bilder  ;  " 
Pennypacker  :  "  Historical  and  Biographical  Sketches;"  ''Ephrata  monu- 
ment designed  and  to  be  erected  over  the  remains  of  two  hundred  American 
soldiers,  etc.,"  1845;  Sachse :  "Sectarians;"  Kriebel :  **Schwenk- 
felders  in  Pennsylvania;"  Levering  :"  Bethlehem  in  Pennsylvania;" 
Clewell :  "  Wachovia  ;  "  Dubbs  :  "  Historic  Manual ;  "  and  "Reformed 
Church  in  Pennsylvania;"  Jacobs:  "Lutheran  Church;"  in  American 
Church  History  series,  Vol.  4  ;  Jordan  :  "  Military  Hospitals  at  Bethlehem 
and  Lititz;"  (Philadelphia,  1896).  Loskiel :  ''History  of  Missions," 
translated  by  Latrobe  (London,  1794),  gives  a  good  account  of  the  Mora- 
vian missions  among  the  Indians  and  a  dispassionate  story  of  the  Gnaden- 
hiitten  massacre.  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Jordan  for  supplying  me  with  his 
•'  Extracts  from  Records  of  Moravian  Congregation  at  Hebron,  Pa.,  1775- 
81,"  republished  in  Pennsylvania  Magazine  of  History  and  Biography, 
Vol.  XVHI,  pp.  449,  et  seq.  I  have  also  used  H.  M.  M.  Richards: 
"  Descendants  of  H.  M.  Muhlenberg,"  Pennsylvania  German  Society's 
transactions,  Vol.  X,  part  3. 


133 


CONCLUSION 

In  taking  leave  of  this  study  of  the  reHgious  Hfe  of 
the  Germans  in  America  during  the  Colonial  period,  a 
few  general  impressions  are  left  upon  the  student's  mind 
which  may  be  worth  recapitulating.  One  concerns  the 
opinion  held  of  the  German  churches  and  church  people 
by  the  English  colonists  ;  another  the  judgment  passed 
upon  the  Germans  by  some  of  their  clerical  fellow-coun- 
trymen. In  the  first  case,  the  Germans  were  not  so 
ignorant  as  was  generally  supposed  by  men  who  could 
not  read  or  speak  their  language.  Secondly,  moral  con- 
ditions were  not  so  bad  among  them  as  they  appear  to 
some  observers  and  reporters  of  the  German  race  and 
language. 

That  the  Germans  were  not  so  illiterate  and  brutish 
as  the  founders  of  the  Charity  School  project  thought 
them,  has  frequently  been  stated ; — the  gloomy  picture 
drawn  by  Provost  Smith  could  scarcely  have  applied  to 
any  but  a  few  small  and  remote  frontier  clearings.  The 
earliest  emigration  of  Separatists  and  sectarians  was 
characterized  by  the  number  of  learned  men  who  dwelt 
among  such  communities  as  Germantown  and  that  of  the 
Wissahickon  Hermits.  These  men  were  often  ''cranks," 
but  frequently  it  was  much  learning  which  had  made 
them  mad.  In  the  later  emigration  of  the  church  people, 
one  is  struck  with  the  number  of  university  graduates 

134 


Conclusion 

among  the  clergymen — mostly  of  course  from  the  pietistic 
centers  of  Herborn,  Halle  and  Giessen.  The  prominence 
of  the  schoolmaster  in  the  early  settlements  is  another 
witness  to  German  zeal  for  education ;  this  personage,  in 
early  times,  frequently  conducted  services,  read  sermons, 
and,  among  the  Lutherans,  baptized  children  who  were 
thought  to  be  in  the  article  of  death,  besides  teaching 
reading,  writing,  the  catechism  and  hymns.  Often  such 
a  schoolmaster  developed  into  a  religious  worker,  or- 
dained or  unordained.  The  later  movements  of  Mora- 
vianism  or  Methodism  made  greater  use  of  the  ''pious 
laymen"  than  was  encouraged  in  the  Lutheran  and 
Calvinistic  churches ;  but  we  have  seen  that  these  two 
denominations  owed  their  origins  here  to  laymen  only 
subsequently  ordained — to  Stoever  and  to  Boehm  re- 
spectively. But  even  in  the  later  movements  mentioned, 
the  leaders  were  university  men  and  clergymen,  ** pious, 
learned  and  regularly  ordained,"  ^  for  among  those  lead- 
ers were,  beside  the  Englishmen  Whitefield  and  the 
Wesleys,  Germans  fully  their  equals,  such  as  Spangen- 
berg,  Zinzendorf,  John  Wesley's  teacher  Bohler.  Of 
the  church  people  one  need  only  mention  such  names  as 
Muhlenberg  and  his  three  ministerial  sons,  Schlatter, 
Otterbein  and  Zubly, — leaders  and  representatives  of 
scores  of  faithful,  learned  and  earnest  men  who  laid  the 
foundations  for  the  churches  of  the  Fatherland  in  this 
new  land.  Among  the  sects,  such  as  the  Mennonites, 
Dunkers    and   Schwenkfelders,    who    disapproved  of  a 

^  To  quote  the  testimony  of  Muhlenberg  to  the  character  of  one  of  the 
writer's  ancestors,  Rev.  John  Georg  Eager  of  St.  Michaels,  Conewago. 

135 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

paid  and  "man-made"  ministry,  it  is  evident  that  there 
was  not  great  ignorance;  the  Hterary  activity  of  the 
Dunker  monks  of  Ephrata,  the  support  of  Saur's  press 
and  paper — the  latter  with  a  circulation  of  several 
thousands, — the  manuscripts  of  the  Schwenkfelders,  the 
school  and  school-books  of  the  Mennonite  Christopher 
Dock,  all  show  a  condition  the  reverse  of  ignorance  or 
of  illiteracy. 

As  the  intellectual  state  of  the  Germans  was  not  so 
bad  as  painted  by  the  EngHsh  Charity  School  Society, 
so  neither  was  the  moral  one  such  as  one  might  gather 
from  the  accounts  which  German  observers  sent  back 
to  Europe — those  of  Miihlenberg  for  instance,  in  the 
Halle  Reports.  These  rather  refer  to  the  lack  of 
clergymen  and  of  regularly  organized  churches  than  to 
real  moral  or  ethical  decadence.  Surely  people  as 
anxious  as  these  struggling  pioneers  showed  themselves 
for  the  ministrations  of  the  church  were  not  sunk  in 
indifference  and  irreligion.  They  paid  the  passage  of 
clergymen,  they  built  churches,  they  flocked  in  crowds 
to  services  ;  in  default  of  a  minister,  schoolmaster  or 
elder  read  a  sermon  or  a  service  ;  they  were  instructed 
in  the  Scriptures,  the  hymns,  the  devotional  works  of 
the  Fatherland.  The  universal  testimony  of  the  Eng- 
lish colonists,  who  neither  liked  nor  understood  the 
Germans,  shows  that  their  moral  character  compelled 
favorable  opinion.  This  was  the  case  with  the  celibates 
of  Ephrata  whose  whole  manner  of  life  brought  them 
under  suspicion,  and  with  the  Moravians,  who  were 
preceded  or  followed  in  their  earlier  years  by  the  most 

136 


Conclusion 

violent  denunciations  from  highly-esteemed  religious 
leaders,  both  English  and  Continental,  and  whose 
peculiarities  of  life  and  expression  laid  them  open  to 
much  misconstruction. 

The  effect  of  the  events  which  separated  the  colonies 
from  the  mother  country  was  almost  entirely  a  good  one. 
The  rule  of  the  various  European  bodies  which  gave 
direction  or  help  to  the  struggling  congregations  in  the 
American  wilderness  had  been  important  and  well 
intentioned  ;  but  from  distance,  uncertainty  of  com- 
munication, and,  most  of  all,  from  ignorance  of  Ameri- 
can conditions,  became,  instead  of  a  help,  a  yoke  not 
easy  to  be  borne.  The  Calvinistic  "  Fathers  in  Hol- 
land," the  Lutheran  pietists  at  I  Halle,  as  well  as  the 
Mennonite  Committee  in  Amsterdam,  were  all  alike  in 
their  insistence  that  nothing  should  be  done  without 
their  advice.  They  wanted  to  appropriate  the  money, 
direct  the  action,  ordain  the  clergymen, — in  short,  do 
whatever  under  their  various  constitutions,  might  be 
proper  for  a  superior  body  to  do.  They  frequently 
treated  their  American  brethren  with  that  '*  certain  con- 
descension" which  a  much  later  authority  has  noticed  in 
''foreigners."  Though  at  first  the  German  Americans, 
left  to  themselves,  felt  and  showed  the  lack  of  contact 
with  European  culture  and  there  was  in  Church  as  in 
State,  in  German  as  in  English  colonists  a  certain 
intellectual  and  moral  decadence,  a  critical  period  to 
pass  through,  yet,  at  the  end,  independence  here 
opened  a  new  era  of  renewed  activity,  and  led  to  the 
production  in  the  German  religious  life,   as   elsewhere, 

137 


German  Religious  Life  in  Colonial  Times 

of  an  American  type  of  church  life  instead  of  a 
European  one.  It  was  the  end  of  an  era  of  following, 
of  imitation,  of  essential  provinciality,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  a  religious  life  characterized  by  freedom  and 
independence. 

Note. — In  the  nature  of  things,  no  references  can  be  given  for  any 
statement  in  the  foregoing  section.  The  reader  may  rest  assured  that 
these  generahzations  are  made  from  many  particular  instances,  and  that  in 
making  them,  although  not  giving  author  and  page,  the  present  writer 
does  not  speak  without  the  book. 


INDEX 


¥¥ 


Adams  County,  (Pa.),  76 

Albany,  64,  89 

Albright,  102 

Alleglienies,  120 

Allentown,  116,  118 

Ames,  33 

Amish,  33,  34 

Amsterdam,  35,  60,  137 

Anabaptists,  15,  16,  24,  25 

Andrea,  14-16 

Andrews,  58 

Antes,  Col.,  123 

Antes,  Henry,  58,  85,  90,  95 

Antietam,  105 

Antinomians,  87 

Appomattox,  29 

Arndt,  Gottfried,  67,  129 

Arndt,  Johann,  13,  14,  16,  23,  56 

Arnold,  Benedict,  131 

Arnold,  Gottfried,  13,  36,  37 

Asbury,  100,  104,  105 

Augsburg,  71 

Augsburg  Confession,  13 

Austria,  80 

Bach,  12 

Baden,  54 

Bader,  116,  117 

Eager,  135 

Baltimore,  100,  103,  105 

Baltimore,  Lord,  27 

Bancroft,  107 

Barnesville,  100 

Basel,  42 

Bax,  22 

Bear,  108,  iii 

Beaver,  120 

Becker,  42,  43 

Beethoven,  11 

Beissel,  19,  42-48,  57,  58,  86 

Bengel,  13,  22 

Benson,  106 

Berger,  106 

Berkenmeyer,  64 


Berks  County,  (Pa.),  34,  84 

Berleburg,  37,  47 

Berlin,  18 

Berne,  35,  57 

Bernheim,  78 

Berthelsdorf,  80 

Bethabara,  91 

Bethania,  91 

Bethlehem,  85,  88,  90,  91,  93,   97, 

107,  108,  114,  116,  119,  133 
Beyaert,  (Bayard),  28,  loi 
Bismarck,  11 
Boehler,  95,  96,  135 
Boehni,  J.  Philip,  58,  60,  68,  S7 
Boehm,  Martin,  102 
Boehme,  Jacob,   14,  16,  19,  31,  ^,2, 

37,82 
Boeckels,  119 
Bogatzky,  22 

Bohemia  Manor,  27,  28,  loi 
Bohemia  Mills,  loi 
Boltzius,  72 
Boston,  56.  115 
Bouquet,  62 
Braddock,  62 
Brandenburg,  71 
Brandywine,  iii,  118,  119,  131 
Bremen,  55 
Brethren,  German  Baptist,  see 

Bunkers 
Brother  Joannes  Anguas,  in 
Brother  Obed,  46 
Brother  Onesimus,  45,  86 
Brumbaugh,  39,  48,  52,  86,  no,  113, 

133 
Brunswick,  (reg't),  n9 
Bucher,  n7,  124 
Biininger,  99 
Butler,  129 

Cacusi,  125 

Calvert,  77 
Calvin,  17 
Camden,  (N.  Y.),  99 


139 


Index 


Cammerhoff,  89 

Canada,  75,  99 

Canajoharie,  89 

Canstein,  19 

Carlisle,  129 

Carroll,  Archbishop,  75 

Catawba,  67 

Catholics,   16,  17,  27,  54-56,  75-78, 

81,  126 
Charity  Schools,  51,  62,  78,  134,  136 
Charleston,  66,  71,  126,  129 
Chester  County,  (Pa.),  103 
Chestnut  Hill,  124 
Clewell,  93,  133 
Cobb,  75,  78 
Codorus,  68 
Concord,  26,  27 
Conestoga,  35,  43,  45,  46,  53,   57, 

58.70       _     ^ 
Conewago,  68,  76,  135 
Connecticut,  87 
Conyngham,  34,  52 
Court  Mattrass,  97,  98 
Crefeld,  25-27,  36,  40-42 
Cresheim,  33 
Croese,  31 
Cromwell,  30 

Bankers,  28,  52 

David,  Christian,  80 

Declaration  of  Independence,  112, 

127 
DeCourcy,  78 
Detroit,  121,  122 
Delaware,  30,  75 
Delawares,  (Indians),  87,  120 
Denny,  49 
Denmark,  83 
Diaspora,  83 
Diffenderfer,  98,  106 
Dippel,  70 
Dock,  49,  136 
Dresden,  18,  80 
Dubbs,  77,  105,  106,  127,  133 
Dunkers,  (Tunker),  36,  42-44,  47, 

50,  52,  61,  73,  83,  86,  107-109,  III, 

135,  136 
Diirer,  12 

Easton,  116 
East  Vincent,  124 
Ebenezer,  67,  71,  72,  130 
Eckerlins,  43,  45,  46,  86 
Eder,  40 
Eichers,  43 
Elsass,  25 


Embury,  98,  99,  100,  118 

Emmaus,  116 

England,  82,  98 

Ephrata,  43-49,   52,  58,  70,  79,  86 

107,  108,  III,  118,  133,  136 
Episcopal  Church,  57,  65,  73,  74 
Ettwein,  116 
Ettwein,  John,  118 
Evangelical  Association,  102,  106 

Faehring,  125 

Falkners,  32,  53,  64 

Falkner's  Swamp,  58,  76.  85,  124 

Farmer,  (Steynmeyer),  76 

Ferdinand,  79 

Ferree,  53 

Fetter  Lane,  84,  97 

Finley,  100 

Florida,  75 

Fort  Pitt,  121,  122,  126 

Foundry,  97 

France,  46,  55 

Francke  (elder  and  younger),  18, 

19,  36,  47,  69,  71,  94,  97 
Francke,  Kuno,  23 
Frankfort,  17,  18,  20,  26,  37 
Franklin,  33,  47,  48,  61,  114 
Frederica,  65,  126 
Frederick,  103 

Frederick  County,  (Md.),  100 
Frederick  (township),  95 
Freytag,  21,  22 
Friedland,  91 
Friesland,  42 

Gatch,  loi 

Geiger,  75,  76 

Geissendanner,  65 

Gellert,  12 

Geneva,  16 

George,  King,  129 

Georgia,  72,  81-84,  89,  94-96,  126, 

128 
Gerhardt,  12 
Germanna,  68 
Germantown,  27-35,  37,  42,  44,  45, 

47,  49,  50,  56,  57,  59,  94,  108,  109, 

131,  134 
Gettysburg,  29 
Gibson.  121 
Giessen,  36,  54,  135 
Gillies,  106 

Gnadenhutten,  117,  120,  122,  133 
Gobrecht,  124 
Goebel,  22,  24,  52,  77 
Gorlitz,  14 


140 


Index 


Goethe,  ii,  21,  23,  41 
Gottingen,  71 
Good,  77,  106,  126 
Goshenhoppen,  75,  76 
Granville,  87 
Graffenried,  de,  35,  57 
Great  Swamp,  35 
Gronau,  72 
Guilford,  124 
Gulch,  41 
Guldin,  57,  68 

Haarlem,  81 

Haeger,  57 

Hagarty,  100 

Halle,   19,  21,  36,  47,  68-72,  77,  80, 

96,  130,  132,  135,  137 
Hamilton,  80,  93 
Handel,  12 
Hannover,  67 
Hanover,  68,  76,  124 
Harbaugh,  106 
Hapsburg,  81 
Hark,  52 
Hartung,  73 
Hausihl,  130 
Hazard,  52 
Hebron,  116,  117,  133 
Heck,  Barbara,  98,  99 
Heckewelder,  120 
Hedges,  23 

Hedwig,  Countess,  37,  40 
Heidelberg,  43,  46 
Hellenbock,  88 
Helmuth,  108.  128 
Hendel,  125 
Herborn,  60,  135 
Herder,  12,  23 
Herford,  Abbess  of,  27 
Herkimer,  123 
Hermann,  Augustine,  28 
Hermann,  Ephraim,  28 
Herr,  Hans,  35 
Herrnhaag,  83 
Herrnhut,  81,  82,  96,  120 
Hersey,  loi,  102 
Hesse,  54,  58 
Hessians,  116,  124 
Hiester,  123 
Hillegas,  123 
Hochmann  von  Hochenau,  25,  36,    | 

41 
Hoffman,  103 
Holland,  24.  25,  28,  35,  54,  59,  60,    1 

66,  137 
Hope,  91 


I    Howe,  112,  132 
!    Hudson,  63,  64 
I    Huguenots,  54,  56 
Huss,  12,  79 

Indians,  44-46, 61,  62,  64,  83,  87,  89, 

91,  93,  99,  117,  120-122,  125,  133 
Ireland,  97,  98 
Irene,  90 
Isenburg-Biidingen,  20 

Jackson,  80,  83,  93 

Jacobs,  78,  133 

Jansenists,  17 

Jesuits,  17,  27,  75,  76,  81 

Jews,  37 

Jones,  John  Paul,  lao 

Jordan,  117,  133 

Joris,  37 

Julian,  106 

Jung  Stilling,  41 

j    Kapp,  65 
Karl  Ludwig,  25 
Kedar,  iii 
Keith,  32 
Kelpins,  32 
Klopstock,  12,  23 
Koch,  41 

Kocherthal,  63,  64 
Koster,  32 

Kriebel,  Geo.,  113,  114 
Kriebel,  H.  W.,  93,  133 
Kuhns,  106 
Kiindig,  35 
Kurtz,  34 
Kurtz  (Church  History),  23 

Labadie,  16,  17,  28,  55,  104 

Labadists,  25,  27,  52,  loi 

La  Fayette,  119 

Lampe,  104 

Lancaster,  68,  76,  103,  132 

Lancaster  County,  (Pa.),  34,  35,  44, 

108 
Latrobe,  80,  133 
Laurenti,  22 
Lau,  51 

Leade,  Jane,  37,  82 
Lebanon,   (Quitapotilla),   68,    116, 

124 
Lednum,  102,  106 
Lehigh,  85 

Lehigh  County,  (Pa.),  124 
Leibnitz,  12,  21 
Leipzig,  18 


14] 


Index 


Lessing,  12 

Levering,  93,  133 

Lewes,  30 

Lexington,  128 

Libe,  42 

Limerick,  '97 

Lititz,  117,  133 

Lobwasser,  56 

Lodenstein,  104 

London,  57,  60,  61,  63,  94,  96,  98,  130 

Longfellow,  119 

Loskiel,  133 

Louis  XIV.,  17 

Lunenburg,   73 

Luther,  12,  19,  79,  Si,  96,  128 

Lutherans,  14,  16,  18,  20,  24,  32,  36, 
Chapter  in. ,  81,  85-89,  93,  95,  108, 
109,  123, 126-130,  132,  133,  135,  137 

Mack,  Alexander,  38,  39,  42,  44 
Mack,  Alexander,   Jr.,   ("Brother 

Sander  "),  44,  51 
Maine,  73 
Manatany,  35 
Mann,  74 

Manners,  (Sittensperger),  76 
Mannheim,  35 
Marienborn,  40,  83,  96,  97 
Marietta,  100 
Marot,  56 
Marsay,  25 
Marsteller,  124 
Martin,  66,  67,  129 
Maryland,  27,  28,  52,  59,  62,  72,  77, 

89,  100,  loi,  104,  105 
Matthew,  Conrad,  94 
Mecklenburg  Co.,  (N.  C),  67 
Mel,  56 

Mengs,  Raphael,  12 
Menno,  15,  24,  33,  37 
Mennonites,  16,  24-31,  33-37,  42,  47, 

49.  52,  73,  75,  85,  86,  107,  108,  iii, 

135,  137 
Metachton,  109 
Methodists,  Chapter  V.,  13 
Michael,  124 
Mickly,  118 
Miller,  Peter,  ("  Brother  Jaebez") 

43,  46,  47,  53,  58,  70,  112,  113 
Mohawk,  64,  123,  128 
Molther,  97 
Moltke,  12 
Molinos,  37 
Monmouth,  131 
Monocacy,  72,  89 
Montgomery  Co.,  (Pa.),  34,  102 


Moravia,  79 

Moravians,  58,  69,  72,  73,  Chapter 

IV.,  94,  96,  97,  99,  104,  107,  108, 

114-117,   119,    120,    122,    123,    133, 

135,  136 
Morgan,  115 
Morristown,  126 
Miihlenberg,  H.  M.,  66,   68-75,  79, 

88,  127,  130,  133,  135,  136    . 
Miihlenberg,  Gen.  Peter,  109,  130, 

131 
Muhlenberg,  Ernest,  132 
Miihlenberg,  F.  A.,  132 
Miinster,  15 
Muskingum,  120 

Nassau,  54 

Nazareth,  84,  90,  94 

Neander,  56 

Netherlands,  35 

Neuburg,  54 

Nevelling,  124 

New  Berne,  57,  63 

New  England,  ii,  56,  76,  128 

New  Hanover,  68 

New  Jersey,  59,  73,  75,  89,  124 

New  Netherlands,  30,  31 

New  Paltz,  63 

New  River,  46 

New  York,  31,  44,  57,  63,  69,  73,  76, 

87,  98,  99,  125 
New  York  City,  59,  64,  73,  85,  100, 

103,  124,  125,  132 
Nitschmann,  96 
North  Carolina,  35,  67,  73,  78,  89, 

91,  93,  98,  108,  122,  129 
Nova  Scotia,  73,  130 
Niirnberg,  37,  38 
Nussman,  67,  129 
Nyniwegen,  35 

Octoraro,  34 
Oehl,  57 

Oglethorpe,  72,  81 
Ohio,  loi,  120 
Ohio,  (River),  120,  121 
Oley,  84 
Onandagas,  89 
Orange,  17,  24 
Orangeburg,  65,  66,  126 
Oriskany,  123 
Otterbein,  103-106,  135 
Oxford,  96 

Palatine  Bridge,  65 

Pastorius,  26-28,  33,  37,  43,  51.  56 


142 


Index 


Peasants'  War,  15 
Pellentz,  76 
Penn,  24,  26,  33,  36 
Penns3'lvania,  26,  27,  32-35)  4^)  43" 

47,  51,  53,  58-60,63,  67-69,  73,  75, 
::^;8i,  84,  85,  87,  89,  93,  103,  106,  117, 

120,  125,  127,  129,  132,  133 
Pennsylvania  Germans,  62,  72,  73, 

93,  133 
Pennsylvania,  University  of,  61 
Pennypacker,  29,  32,  34,  49,  52,  I33 
Petersen,  37 
Pfalz,  (Palatinate),  25,  33,  35,  4o, 

42,  54,  55,  60,  98 
Philadelphia,  46,  58,  59,  62,  72,  75, 

76,  85,  87,  88,  95,   102,   108,    109, 

112,  124,  126,  128,  129,  132 
"  Philadelphian  "  Society,  37 
Pietism,  12,  13,  16,  18-22,  36,  55,  56, 

60,  69,  83,  91 
Pietists,  26,  37,  43,  45,  57-  63,  70, 

71,80 
Pipe  Creek,  100,  loi,  105 
Pittsburg,  62 
Plockhoy,  30,  31 
Poiret,  37 
Poland,  79 
Pordage,  37 

Presbyterians,  57,  60,  63,  73,  87 
Princeton,  127 

Providence,  (the  Trappe),  72,  124 
Pulaski,  119 
Puritans,  11 
Purysburg,  65,  84,  126 
Pyrlaus,  85,  87 

Quakers,  27-29,  31-34,  82,  85,  93 
Quitapohilla,  see  Lebanon 


Rabenhorst,  130 

Raikes,  46 

Reading,  113 

Reck,  von,  78 

Reeser,  113 

Reformation,  11,  13 

Reformed  Church,  16-18,  24,  27,  46, 
Chapter  III.,  79,  87,  95,  100,  102- 
106,  112,  118,  123-126,  128,  133 

Reformed  (Dutch)  Church,  57,  58, 

63 
Reichel,  93 
Reichel,  Bishop,  120 
Reuss,  80 
Revolutionary  War,  51,  67,  75,  76, 

106,  Chapter  VI. 


Rhine,  15,  17,  19,  54,  55 

Rhinebeck,  63 

Richards,  133 

Riedesel,  119 

Rock,  19 

Rodigast,  22 

Rosicrucians,  14,  15,  31,  33 

Rotterdam,  32,  88 

Royal  American  Regiment,  62 

Ru'nkel,  126 

Ruttinghausen,  28,  30 

Saalhof,  26 

Sachse,  52,  113,  133 

St.  Gall,  59,  126 

St.  Petersburg,  120 

St.  Thomas,  83 

Salem,  (N.  J.),  75 

Salem,  (Ohio),  120,  121,  122 

Salem,  (N.  C),  91,  108,  122,  123 

Salzburgers,  71,  72,  78,  94 

Sam's  Creek,  100 

Sandusky,  121 

Saucon  Valley,  108 

Saur,  Catherine,  109 

Saur,  Christopher,  Sr.,  43,  44,  47- 

49,  52,  61,  62,  136 
Saur,  Christopher,  Jr.,  49,  50,  52, 

108-110 
Savannah,  72,  94,  95,  126,  127,  129 
Saxe  Gotha,  65 
Saxon v  and  the  Saxons,  12,  16,  18, 

19,  36,  54,  80,  81 
Schebosch,  121,  122 
Schiller,  11 

Schlatter,  59-62,  72-74,  103,  124,  135 
Schmauk,  68,  69,  77,  129 
Schmick,  117 
Schneider,  75,  76 
Schoenbrunn,  120,  122 
Schoharie,  44,  64,  69 
Scharf,  77 

Schultz,  82,  113,  114 
Schwarzenau,  37-40,  42,  45 
Schwarzenau  Taiifer,  36 
Schwenkfeld,  82 
Schwenkfelders,  81,  82,  85,  93,  107, 

113,  114,  133,  135,  136 
Seidel,  115,  120 
Seidensticker,  52,  75,  128,  133 
Semler,  22 
Separatists,  14,  15,  Chapter  II.,  53, 

93,  134 
Seward,  95,  106 
Shea,  76,  78 
Shekomeko,  87 


143 


Index 


Shenandoah,  72,  130 

Shippen,  116 

Siegen,  125 

Sister  Marcella,  44,  47,  49 

Sister  Petronella,  46 

Skippack,  35,  95,  124 

Sluyter,  28,  52,  loi 

Sluyter's  Mill,  loi 

Smith,  H.  W.,  78 

Smith,  William,  60,  78,  134 

Sommer,  64 

South  Carolina,  65,  66,  73,  78,  84, 

124,  126,  130 
Spangenberg,  80,  82,  89-91,  93,  95, 

96,  135  ^ 
Spener,  16-20,  22,  69,  104 
Spotswood,  68 
Spreng,  106 
Stahlschmidt,  125 
Steuben,  123,  126,  131 
Stevens,  106 
Stone  Arabia,  65 
Stony  Point,  131 
Stoever,  63,  68,  69,  70,  135 
Stoughton,  56 
Strasburg,  45,  54,  68 
Strawbridge,  100-102,  104 
Streit,  129 
Strobel,  78 

Sullivan's  Island,  131 
Supplee,  102 
Susquehanna,  68 
Suther,  124 
Switzer,  99 
Switzerland,  15,  16,  38,  54,  57,  60, 

126 
Swope  (Schwob),  100,  104 


Tacitus,  21 
Tempelman,  57-59 
Tennants,  73,  87,  93 
Tersteegen,  25,  40,  41,  56,  125 
Test  Act,  107-109,  113,  114,  116 
Thirty  Years'  War,  11-14,  21,  79 
Thomasius,  13,  18,  21,  36 
Thomson,  60 

Tories,  107,  108,   109,   112,   124,    125 
Triebner,  130 
Trenton,  116 
Tulpehocken,  44,  69,  70 
Tyerman,  97 


United  Brethren,  102,  106 
Universalists,  87 


Untereyck,  55,  104 
Urlsperger,  71,  78 


Valley  Forge,  113,  117,  126 
Vaughn,  23 

Virginia,  35,  59,  62,  68,  72.  89,  115, 
129-131 


Wachovia,  91,  93,  122,  133 

Wagner,  11 

Waldenses,  54,  56,  79 

Waldoboro,  73 

Walton,  113 

Wapeler,  76 

Washington   County,  (N.    Y.),   99 

Washington,   George,  112, 125,  126, 

130 
Washington,  Lady,  120 
Watteville,  de,  91,  96 
Webb,  99,  118 
Weber,  65,  66 
Weber  (Pastor)  125 
Weedon,  131 

Weiser,  43,  44,  48,  62,  69,  70,  72,  87 
Weiser,  Madlina,  44 
Weiss,  58,  60 
Wernersville,  125 
Wesleys,  72,  84,  94-100,  io6,  135 
West  Indies,  82,  83 
West  Virginia,  46 
Westmoreland  Count}^  (Pa.),  125 
Westphalia,  Peace  of,  24 
Wetterau,  18,  83 
W^eyberg,  124 
Whitefield,  72,  73,  84,  94,  95,  loi, 

106,  127,  135 
Whittier,  27,  56 
Widman,  112,  113 
Wiegner,  82,  95 
Wieland,  23 
Wiewaert,  28 
William  the  Silent,  24 
Winkworth,  23 
Wissahickon,  Hermits  of  the,  31, 

32,  52,  53,  63,  95,  134 
Wittenberg,  19 
Wittgenstein,  20,  43 
"Woman  in  the  Wilderness,"  31, 

32 
Woodstock,  130 
Woolman,  29 
Wrangel,  73,  74 
Wiirtemberg,  14,  31,  54 
Wyoming,  87,  88 


144 


Index 


York,  68,  103 

York  County,   (Pa.),  103,  115 

Yorktown,  131 

Zeisberger,  120 
Ziegler,  120 
Zimmermann,  31,  32 
Zinzeiidorf,  69,  72,  73,    79,  80-88, 
90-93,   96,  104,  135 


Zinzendorf,  Countess  Benigna,  84, 

87,97 
Zion,  III,  118 
Zubly,  95,  126,  127,  135 
Zurich,  25 
Zweibriicken,  54 
ZwJngli,  2,  15,  54,  ii6. 


THE  END 


145 


